Background: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the therapeutic effects of ephedrine and lidocaine in treatment of intraoperative hiccups in gynecologic surgery under sedation.
Materials and methods: This randomized clinical trial in Isfahan was done on fifty female patients referring to Shahid Beheshti Hospital who needed to have sedation for medical interventions and they afflicted hiccups during surgery or sedation. Patients divided into two groups of 25 randomly assigned to one of the two groups of ephedrine or lidocaine. Ephedrine group received 5 mg/kg of medicine, while the lidocaine group was under treatment with 1 mg/kg lidocaine. Patients were monitored about systolic and diastolic blood pressure, MAP, heart rate, duration of hiccup, frequency of betterment, duration of intervention, and recovery at 15-min intervals of surgery and recovery.
Results: Hiccups were resolved in 14 cases (56%) in the lidocaine group, while the improvement of such problem was achieved in 24 cases (96%) in ephedrine group (P < 0.001), so that the two groups did not have any significant difference in terms of the time of onset but the stop time of hiccups (relative to its start time) in the ephedrine group with the mean value of (2.40 ± 1.16) was significantly lower than the lidocaine group with the mean of 19.64 ± 22.76 min (P = 0.014). In addition, no complications were observed in the two groups.
Conclusion: Ephedrine has been more successful than lidocaine as a stimulant in controlling hiccups, and it has been able to suppress hiccups in a higher percentage of patients at a shorter time.
Keywords: Ephedrine; gynecologic surgery; intraoperative hiccups; lidocaine.