Background and objectives:

Epidural anaesthesia is very safe and has the advantage of giving surgical anaesthesia and prolonged post operative analgesia. Common practice is to use polypharmacy and no drug is found to cause antinociceptive action without any side effects. The current study is to observe the role of supplemental magnesium a non expensive and relatively non harmful molecule for perioperative epidural analgesia.

Materials and Methods:

Sixty patients from either sex (age–20 to 60 years) undergoing lower limb surgery selected randomly in two groups each. Group : B (n=30) patients with height >160cm received total volume of 20ml(19ml of plain 0.5% Bupivacaine + Normal saline 1ml of 0.9%) and those with height <160cm  received a total volume of 15ml(14ml of 0.5% Bupivacaine + Normal saline 1ml of 0.9%).On the other hand Group  BM patients (n=30) with height>160cm received a total volume of 20ml (19ml of 0.5% bupivacaine + Magnesium sulphate 1ml containing 50 mg) and those with height <160cm received a total volume of 15ml (14ml of 0.5% Bupivacaine+ Magnesium  sulphate 1ml containing 50mg) through the epidural route

Results:

Onset time, duration of anaesthesia, hemodynamics, side effects are measured. The time for onset of sensory block was significantly less in group BM compared to group B (p– value < 0.05).

Conclusion:

The current study establishes that magnesium sulphate to epidural bupivacaine is very safe and can provide a rapid onset of anaesthesia.