Postoperative pain management for single-level lumbar disc herniation surgery: a comparison of betamethasone, ibuprofen and pregabalin

Objectives:The aim of this study was to compare the effects of pregabalin, betamethasone, and ibuprofen on post-operative pain management in patients with single-level lumbar disc herniation surgery.Methods: The present study was a randomized prospective study conducted at a tertiary university hospital.Sixty patients were equally divided into three groups based on whether they were treated with pregabalin (Group 1), ibuprofen (Group 2), and betamethasone (Group 3).Patients whose pre-operative back and leg pain was evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS) and the Oswestry scale were administered 100 mg tramadol hydrochloride during surgery.The treatment efficiency was compared by assessing post-operative VAS scores at 24 h, 1 week, and 1 month after and Oswestry scale at 1 month after surgery.Results: The VAS scores for pre-operative and post-operative back pain did not show significant differences between the results at 1 week and 1 month in any group.There was no significant drug efficacy between post-operative week 1 and postoperative month 1, except for pregabalin; an early effect was less frequently observed in the pregabalin group than in the ibuprofen and betamethasone groups.Conclusion: Although the three groups treated for single-level lumbar disc herniation received similar post-operative analgesia at the end of post-operative month 1, the decrease in VAS scores for back and leg pain was significant in the betamethasone group in the 1 st post-operative 24 h and post-operative month 1.