comparative study of the efficacy between 0.5% bupivacaine and 0.5% bupivacaine-dexamethasone 8mg combination in supraclavicular brachial plexus block

Background: Initially the concept of pain was emotional rather than a sensory modality. The word pain is acquired from the Greek word poine which means “penalty”.1 The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) described pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage”.2 Peripheral nerve blocks have become a popular anaesthetic option in the perioperative management of patients because nerve blocks provide better postoperative analgesia than does general anaesthesia, while avoiding the cardiopulmonary and central nervous system effects of general anaesthesia. Peripheral nerve block is a technique which uses local anaesthetic to be deposited around a target nerve and block the conduction of action potential thus not allowing pain signals to be transmitted to the pain centre in the brain. Materials & methods: A prospective randomised single blinded study was conducted at Vinayaka Missions Kirupananda Variyar Medical College & Hospitals, Salem from December 2019 to May 2021.