Tehran University Medical Journal

Background: The risk of anesthesia increases with age, so it is necessary to choose a safe and effective method. In this study, we compared the effectiveness of intranasal fentanyl with intravenous fentanyl in patients undergoing cataract surgery.
Methods: This study was a triple-blind prospective randomized clinical trial (The patient, physician, and data analyzer were unaware of the patient grouping). The study was performed from April 2017 to March 2019 in Feyz Hospital, Isfahan, Iran. 90 patients over 18 years of age who were candidates for cataract surgery were included in the study and were divided in two groups receiving intravenous fentanyl (IVF) or intranasal fentanyl (INF). The dose of fentanyl in both groups was 1.5 μg/kg with a maximum of 100 μg. In the IVF group, 1 ml of normal saline was dripped into each nasal passage 10 minutes before surgery and intravenously fentanyl was injected 2 minutes before surgery. In the INF group, 1 ml of fentanyl was administered into each nostril 10 minutes before surgery and 2 ml of saline was administered intravenously two minutes before surgery.

Background: To improve the quality of sedation in procedures, different medications are used alone or in combination with each other, but so far, no administration method that is agreed upon by anesthesiologists has been presented. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness and safety of intranasal ketamine in comparison with intravenous ketamine in cataract surgery.
Methods: This clinical trial was performed from December 2016 to March 2017 in Feyz Hospital, Isfahan. Ninety patients over the age of 18 who were candidates for cataracts surgery were randomly assigned to receive 1 mg/kg ketamine through the nasal route (INk) or intravenously (IVK). Ten minutes before the surgery, ketamine was administered in the INK group and intranasal saline in the IVK group. Two minutes before the start of surgery, normal saline was administered in the INK group and ketamine was administered intravenously in the IVK group. Patients received intravenous midazolam 0.04 mg/kg during prep and drape. The quality of sedation and analgesia, vital signs, patient and doctor satisfaction, and side effects were recorded during the study period. Data were analyzed using of SPSS software, version 23 (IBM SPSS, Armonk, NY, USA).

Results: In this study, 90 people were included in the study, 53 of whom (58.9%) were men. The mean age of the patients was 61.5±10.6. Two groups had a significant difference in terms of gender (P=0.696), age (P=0.960), weight (P=0.212), height (P=0.632), underlying disease (P=0.094), and type of disease (P=0.090). Two groups were not significantly different in terms of mean heart rate (P=0.77), mean arterial blood pressure (P=0.13), mean blood oxygen saturation (P=0.58), patient satisfaction (P=0.470) and surgeon satisfaction (P=0.115), pain intensity (P=0.506), level of sedation level (P=0.477) and side effects (P=0.221). Conclusion: Intranasal administration of ketamine provides similar sedation and cardiovascular response compared to intravenous administration of ketamine. Administering ketamine intranasally is a non-invasive, safe and effective method with easy application and can be a suitable alternative to intravenous administration.