Comparison of effects of ephedrine, lidocaine and ketamine with placebo on injection pain, hypotension and bradycardia due to propofol injection: a randomized placebo controlled clinical trial.

Propofol is a widely used anesthetic drug because of its minor complication and also its fast effect. One of most popular complication in using this drug is pain during injection that is more sever in new generation of its components (lipid-free microemulsion). Other complications of propofol are bradycardia and hypotension. This study compares 3 drugs with placebo in control of these complications of propofol. In this double blinded randomized placebo controlled trial 140 patient who were candidates for elective surgery were divided in 4 groups (35 patients in each groups) and drugs (ephedrine, lidocaine, ketamine and NaCl solution (as placebo) were tried on each group by a blinded technician and responses to drugs were evaluated under supervision of a blinded anesthesiologist. Pain after injection, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were measured 5 times during anesthesia process of each patient. All gathered data were analyzed using t-test and Chi-square under SPSS software. Our data shows that in pain management all tested drugs can decrease pain significantly comparing with placebo (P=0.017). In control of hemodynamic parameters ephedrine could efficiently control SBP, DBP, MAP at the time 1 min after intubation. Based on our study ephedrine can be an appropriate suggestion for control of both pain and hemodynamic changes induced by propofol, although because of inconsistent result in other studies it is recommended to design a systematic review to draw a broader view on this issue.