Meperidine as a Spinal Anesthetic Agent

Abstract

Lumbar subarachnoid space in the sitting position. The patients remained sitting for 5 min before being placed in the supine position. Times of onset of sensory and complete motor blockade were significantly more rapid with LG. The extent of maximum cephalad spread of analgesia and the time to maximum height of analgesia in the two groups were not different. Duration of analgesia at the T-7 (48.96 ± 6.64 min with LG, 44.74 ± 6.14 min with meperidine; means ± sem) and L-1 (94.37 ± 7.42 min with LG, 76.19 ± 5.64 min with meperidine) dermatomes was not different in the two groups but was statistically longer at the T-10 dermatome with LG (66.83 ± 6.72 min) than with meperidine (46.66 ± 6.26 min). The duration of complete motor blockade was also significantly longer with LG (66.44 ± 7.05 min) than with meperidine (42.67 ± 4.47 min). Complications in both groups included decrease in blood pressure and nausea and vomiting intraoperatively, and urinary retention, nausea arid vomiting, and mild headache postoperatively. Complications that occurred only in the meperidine group were intraoperative drowsiness, respiratory depression, bronchospasm, and itching. The frequency of complications was greater with meperidine. The number of patients requiring only oral medication for pain relief during the first 24 hr after surgery was significantly greater in the meperidine group but the number of patients who were pain free and required neither oral nor narcotic analgesic did not differ. Meperidine-water as the sole spinal anesthetic agent in this study had no significant advantage over lidocaine-glucose. Address correspondence to Dr. Sangarlangkarn, Department of Anesthesiology, Ramathibodi Hospital, Rama VI Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand. This study was supported by the Faculty of Medicine Research Fund 1986, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University. Accepted for publication September 23, 1986. © 1987 International Anesthesia Research Society...