A local anesthetic solution providing good quality of analgesia with lesser side-effects is valuable. Our study was aimed to compare the analgesic, motor blocking & hemodynamic effects produced by 0.5%bupivacaine, 0.5%levobupivacaine & 0.75%ropivacaine when used for epidural analgesia in abdominal and lower limb surgeries and thus determine a more effective regional anesthetic drug among the three.

An open prospective RCT was planned including 90 patients at KJSomaiya Hospital. Patients were randomly divided into 3 groups of 30 each to receive epidural bupivacaine ,levobupivacaine or ropivacaine. Sensory, motor and hemodynamic changes were recorded. Chi-square, Fischers test and ANNOVA test were used as applicable.

Results suggest that Ropivacaine and Bupivacaine has similar time of onset of sensory blockade however levobupivacaine has slower onset of sensory blockade. However no significant difference was noted with respect to level of sensory blockade among the three. Levobupivacaine has shorter duration of sensory block as compared to Ropivacaine which in turn has shorter duration than Bupivacaine. Quality of analgesia is similar with all drugs. Bupivacaine has faster onset of motor block as compared to levobupivacaine which in turn has faster onset than ropivacaine. Levobupivacaine and Ropivacainehas similar duration of motor block, whereas Bupivacaine has longer duration than other two. Bupivcacaine has more chances of hypotension as compared to Levobupicaine and Ropivacaine.

It is concluded that all 3 drugs produce similar quality of analgesia with lesser duration of motor block and lesser hemodynamic variability with levobupivacaine and Ropivacaine as compared to Bupivacaine.