Comparison Between Morphine And Morphine Plus Ketamine For Postoperative Pain Relief After Orthopaedic Surgery

The aim of this study is detection of the efficacy of ketamine in low doses as a potent analgesic and it's ability to provide superior analgesia when added to morphine. It compared morphine with ketamine to morphine alone in Quasi experimental design of post surgical pain control . Also this study compared the incidence of morphine common side effects between the two groups. Eighty ASA class I and II patients undergoing elective orthopaedic surgery were administered either 10 mg of morphine \ 8 hourly or 10 mg of morphine plus 0.5 mg/ kg ketamine 8 hourly via intravenous route, pain relief and side effects were assessed 24 hours after surgery. The mean visual analogue scale (VAS) pain rating of patients receiving morphine with ketamine was lower than the (VAS) scores of patients receiving only morphine. There was no much difference in side effects between the two groups, they reported the same incidence of nausea, pruritis and urinary retention. There was higher incidence of dysphoria in morphine plus ketamine group but they reported a lower incidence of sedation. In conclusion I/V ketamine in combination with morphine provide superior post surgical pain relieve