Intra-operative ketamine infiltration in tonsillar bed for relief of post-tonsillectomy pain

Post-tonsillectomy pain is often severe and usually prevents patients from routine eating and drinking. A new option for reducing postoperative pain is "preemptive analgesia", the pre-, intra- or post-operative administration of analgesic agents. Ketamine, an N-methyl D-aspartate receptor antagonist, has recently received attention for this aim. Herein, we study the effect of submucosal injection of ketamine in the tonsillar bed for the reduction of post-tonsillectomy pain. In this double-blind clinical trial, three groups of patients underwent infiltration of 0.5mg/kg ketamine, 1mg/kg ketamine or normal saline in their tonsillar bed. Age, sex and weight of patients, duration of surgery, systolic and diastolic blood.