The effect of adding dexamethasone to intracuff lidocaine 2% on decreasing the respiratory complications after general anesthesia: a randomized, double blind, clinical trail

Article history: Received on: 13/11/2015 Revised on: 07/02/2016 Accepted on: 19/04/2016 Available online: 28/05/2016 Postoperative sore throat and other airway morbidities are common and troublesome after endotracheal intubation general anesthesia. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of dexamethasone added to intracuff lidocaine on decreasing the respiratory complications after general anesthesia. In a retrospective study, 207 patients that were under general anesthesia and scheduled for tracheal intubation, randomly divided to four groups based on endotracheal tube cuff filling (48 patients with air (group A), 52 patients with lidocaine 2% (group L), 54 patients with dexamethasone 4mg (group D) and 53 patients with lidocaine 2% plus dexamethasone 4mg (group LD)). Chi-square test used to compare two categorical variables or T-test for to compare the means in two variables. P-value<0.05 was statistically significant. There was significant different for heart rate between group D and group LD compared to group A. Therefore, heart rate in group d and group LD was lower than group A. There was significant different for sore throat between group D and group L with group A, group L and group LD with group D and also group L with group LD. Therefore, sore throat in group LD was higher than other groups and group L was lower than other groups (P<0.05). Lidocaine alone has maximum of pain relief in the patients and dexamethasone alone inside endotracheal tube cuff increases pain. Dexamethasone added to intracuff lidocaine has no beneficial effect on decreasing the respiratory complications after general anesthesia.