EVALUATION OF THE EFFECT OF SUFENTANIL DROP ADMINISTRATION VIA INTRANASAL ROUTE AS PREMEDICATION IN OUTPATIENT PEDIATRIC SURGERY

Premedication is commonly used in anesthesia. The purpose of premedicating children is to decrease anxiety, vagal stimulation, airway secretion and to prevent post operative psychological and behavioral problems. Different ways and drugs can be used for premedication to achieve this goal. Sufentanil which is a synthetic short acting opioid, can be used as a premedication. The aim of this single blind prospective study was to evaluate the effect of intranasal sufentanil drop in reducing anxiety, providing calmness during the separation of children from parents and causing sleep in them before operation. Sixty patients, aged 2-6 years, with ASA I and II of both sexes, were selected and then randomly divided into two groups of 30 patients each scheduled for outpatient pediatric surgery. Group I (n=30, study or sufentanil group), received 1.5μg/kg sufentanil drops (0.03ml/kg), group II (n=30, control group), received NaCl 0.65%(0.03ml/kg). Sufentanil drops were prepared with the leophylization technique by converting sufentanil 5μg/kg to 50μg/kg. This study showed that sufentanil decreased anxiety and helped calmness and made the children sleep in 86% of the patients in the study group and 63.3% in the control group(P<0.05) after 20 minutes of administering premedication administration. There was a significant decrease in response to mask between two groups(P<0.05). Patient’s emotional response during separation from parents, though not statistically significant, was better in the study group as compared to the control group(P>0.05). This study showed that intranasal sufentanil as a premedication in children can decrease anxiety and help sedation and sleep in this age group.