Ketamine versus propofol for strabismus surgery in children

Ayse Mizrak¹, Ibrahim Erbagci², Tulin Arici¹, Ibrahim Ozcan¹, Gurkan Tatar², Unsal Oner<sup>1

1</sup>Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Gaziantep University School of Medicine, Gaziantep, Turkey; ²The Department of Ophthalmology, Gaziantep University School of Medicine, Gaziantep, Turkey

Purpose: To compare the effects of intravenous infusion of ketamine and propofol anesthesia in children undergoing strabismus surgery.
Methods: Sixty pediatric patients aged 4–11 years were enrolled for the study. Patients in Group K were infused ketamine 1–3 mg/kg/hr (n = 30) and patients in Group P were infused with propofol
6–9 mg/kg/hr (n = 30). After giving fentanyl 1 µg/kg and rocuronium bromide 0.5 mg/kg, patients were intubated.
Results: The consumption of anesthetics (P = 0.0001) and antiemetics (P = 0.004), the incidence of ­oculocardiac reflex (P = 0.02) in Group K were significantly lower than in Group P. The recovery time (P = 0.008), postoperative agitation score (P = 0.005), Face Pain Scale (P = 0.001), Ramsay Sedation Score (P = 0.01) during awakening and at postoperative 30th min (P = 0.02) in Group K were significantly lower than in Group P. The postoperative agitation score ­during awakening was significantly lower than the preoperative values in Group K (P = 0.0001).
Conclusions: The infusion of ketamine is more advantageous than the infusion of propofol in children for use in strabismus surgery.

Keywords: ketamine, propofol, pediatrics, strabismus, surgery