Comparative Study of Morphine Ketamine or Dexmedetomidine Addition to Postoperative Patient-Controlled Analgesia Protocol after Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

Background: One approach to pain management that gives patients more agency over their own pain treatment is patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). Objectives: This work aims to compare the effectiveness of three different regimens of PCA, including morphine versus ketamine or dexmedetomidine, as a postoperative analgesia regimen following laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) in adult females. Methods: A randomized double-blind controlled trial, 105 female participants, ranging in age from 21 to 50, scheduled for elective LC, were split into three equal groups (all received the standard protocol for PCA, one ampoule magnesium sulphate, two ampoule ketorolac and three ampoule ondansetron) plus morphine (0.3mg/ml) in group M, ketamine (2mg/ml) in group K and dexmedetomidine (1 mcg/ml) in group D. Results: While groups K and D had significantly higher visual analog scale (VAS) scores at 4 and 6 hours, group M had significantly lower scores (P Conclusions: Morphine and ketamine performed better than dexmedetomidine for alleviating pain and total opioid consumption and delaying time to first rescue analgesia in LC, with morphine being much more beneficial when combined with PCA.