Anesthesia & Clinical Research
Open Access

Abstract

Will the Body Temperature be Affected by Lowering Intrathecal Morphine Dose from 100 to 50 Micrograms?

Ishak M, Tarraf S, Chamandy S, Ighnatios N, Sfeir R, Kamel K, Ghosn A and Khattar M

Hypothermia has been reported in parturient undergoing caesarean section during spinal anesthesia. Hypothermia has been reported when a large dose of morphine was used in spinal anesthesia as well as in smaller doses of morphine; however it is not studied yet whether a very small dose of morphine (50 μg) would affect the body temperature without changing the analgesia effect. Our study was performed to determine if the body temperature will be affected significantly by lowering the intrathecal dose of morphine from 100 to 50 micrograms. We performed a prospective randomized double blinded study on parturients scheduled for elective caesarean sections under spinal anesthesia. Body temperatures data was processed using t-test with p-value >0.05. There was no statistical significance in the average body temperatures between patients getting intrathecally 50 versus 100 μg of morphine. Our study demonstrated that the body temperature is not affected by decreasing the intrathecal dose of morphine with no change in parturient’s pain scale.