Comparison of the effectiveness of Ropivacaine soaked vs bupivacaine soaked dressing for pain relief at split thickness skin graft donor site.

Objectives: To compare the mean pain score of ropivacaine soaked dressing versus bupivacaine-soaked dressing for pain relief at the donor site among patients requiring split thickness skin grafting after burns and tissue loss. Study Design: (RCT) Randomized control trial. Setting: Department of Plastic Surgery Jinnah Burn and Reconstructive Surgery Center Lahore. Period: January 1, 2019 to June 31, 2019. Material & Methods: Total 120 patients meeting the inclusion criteria were enrolled and divided randomly into Group-A and Group-B based on lottery method. Group A was dressed with ropivacaine soaked dressing while group-B with bupivacaine-soaked dressing. Patients were asked about pain four hours after the dressing using the verbal rating scale of 0-10. Result: Total 120 patients were included and randomly divided in to two groups. The mean age of ropivacaine group (Group A) patients was 40.82±13.20 years and bupivacaine group (Group-B) patients was 39.70±12.20 years. 56(46.67%) patients were males and 64(53.33%) patients were females.  Male to female ratio was 0.8:1. The mean size of the defect for Group-A patients was 10.43±2.92 and Group B patients was 10.13±2.91. The Mean Visual Rating Scale (VRS) at the baseline for ropivacaine was 7.95 ± 1.04 and for bupivacaine was 8.0167 ±.791 (p =0.695) and VRS (verbal rating scale) at 4 hours of ropivacaine group patients was 1.27±1.13 and in bupivacaine group patients was 2.58±1.61. The statistically significant difference is found between the two study groups for VRS at 4 hours (p-value=0.001). Conclusion: Ropivacaine soaked dressing showed significantly better outcome than bupivacaine-soaked dressing at the donor site among patients requiring split thickness skin grafting after burns and tissue loss.