Lidocaine Pretreatment with Tourniquet Inflation Ameliorate Pain on Injection of Propofol

Roh, Woon Seok; Park, Hoon Min; Park, Chan Hong; Kim, Bong Il; Cho, Soung Kyung; Lee, Sang Hwa

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Venous lidocaine retention with tourniquet has a possibility to prevent propofol injection pain efficiently. We performed the study to assess the efficacy of various intravenous lidocaine pretreatment methods with tourniquet on reducing propofol-induced injection pain, especially the effect of varying the concentration and dose of lidocaine.
METHODS
In order to know the effect of lidocaine pretreatment with tourniquet on prevention of propofol-induced injection pain, one hundred patients were divided into four groups by the method of pretreatment; 1% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg (lidocaine pretreatment, LPT1 n = 25); 0.5% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg (LPT2, n = 25); 1% lidocaine of 0.5 mg/kg (LPT3, n = 25); 5 ml of saline pretreatment (saline pretreatment, SPT, n = 25). After 5 minutes of pretreatment, propofol-induced pain was measured immediately after injection of 1 mg/kg propofol with tourniquet inflation and after deflation of tourniquet, and after a second injection of 1 mg/kg propofol by use of the numerical rating scale and pain score of four categories. We selected maximal values of three times measurement for comparison.
RESULTS
All groups of lidocaine pretreatment (pain incidence of LPT1; 20%, LPT2; 16% and LPT3; 36%, respectively) significantly reduced the incidence of propofol-induced injection pain compared to the saline pretreatment group (96%) (P <0.05). Lidocaine pretreatment groups had dramatically lower intensity of pain compared with saline pretreatment (P <0.05). However, there were no differences among the lidocaine pretreatment groups (P > 0.05).
CONCLUSIONS
This result indicates that lidocaine pretreatment with tourniquet has an effect on the prevention of propofol-induced injection pain. However, we recommend pretreatment with 0.5 1% lidocaine of 1 mg/kg by use of tourniquet and propofol injection immediately after deflation of the tourniquet in practice.