A Comparative Study Of The Effect Of Tramadol And Pethidine On Postoperative Shivering

Background : Anesthesiologists attempt to keep perioperative normothermia for surgical patients. In most operating and recovery rooms , shivering is controlled by the use of humidifiers, warming blankets, and inhalation of humidified heated oxygen, however pharmacological control is an alternative treatment modality. Method : In this randomized , double blind study we evaluated 60 patients with ASA class 1 or 2 , who developed postoperative shivering in recovery room. Half of them were treated with pethidine 0.5 mg/kg and others with tramadol 1 mg/kg. We compared the efficacy of tramadol with that of pethidine and the grade of shivering observed 5 minutes after injection of drug and categorized the patients to three groups; completely improved , partially improved and not improved that the last group had no improvement after 15 minutes . Results : In this study 16 from 30 patients improved completely with pethidine ( 53.3% ) and 20 from 30, improved completely with tramadol (66.66% ). Besides 6.66% of tramadol group and 20% of pethidine group had no improvement. Evaluating this complex data with Chi-Square test showed no significant difference between two drugs in stopping post operative shivering ( PV=0.294 ). Discussion : In this study we found that there is no significant difference in anti shivering effect of pethidine and tramadol although some papers believe that tramadol is superior and the others say that pethidine is most efficacious. This discrepancy could be due to difference in age of patients, duration of operation, core and room temperature in various studies. Conclusion ; We concluded that tramadol is as effective as pethidine in subsiding shivering .