Background
The main goal of this review article is to elucidate the merits as well as the safety of nalbuphine as an adjunct to local anesthetics in the sub-arachnoid block, so that its usage will increase considerably. Unlike morphine and fentanyl, nalbuphine, a mixed agonist-antagonist opioid, is not commonly used despite its better features such as good duration of analgesia, lack of pruritus, lesser respiratory depression, nausea and vomiting. There is no review article available in the literature that had analyzed “intrathecal nalbuphine” specifically. The other types of literature available also very few.
Methods
This review article is based on few available literatures that had studied the effects of intrathecal nalbuphine. Total results from PubMed search of was 29 as on 05 March 2017. Thirteen articles were removed from these 29, as they were not relevant to this topic. Nine more articles were taken from PubMed following an additional search of “similar articles” to support this article further. Two articles were selected from Google and seven articles from Embase indexed journals were collected after initial search from Google. Two review articles were collected from Cochrane database, although not specific to intrathecal route of administration alone.
Conclusion
Nalbuphine is a very useful adjunct to intrathecal local anesthetics because of the good duration of analgesia, anti-pruritic,anti-shivering properties, lesser respiratory depression, nausea, and vomiting. The author hopes that this review article will be a forerunner for many more studies to come in the future, so that its acceptance will become widespread.