Background and Aims: Postoperative pain after lumbar laminectomy benefits from pre-emptive analgesia as part of Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) protocols. Gabapentin has shown promise as a pre-emptive analgesic, but the optimal dose remains unclear. This study compares the efficacy of 300 mg and 600 mg doses of gabapentin administered preoperatively for postoperative pain management in lumbar laminectomy patients.

Methods: In this prospective, double-blinded randomized controlled study, after approval from the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) and registering with the Clinical Trials Registry of India (CTRI), 64 patients were randomly assigned to two groups to receive either 300 mg or 600 mg of gabapentin preoperatively. Postoperative pain was assessed using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) at various intervals up to 24 hours along with requirements for rescue analgesics and duration of analgesia. Secondary outcomes included sedation scores, and the incidence of nausea and vomiting. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS version 20, with significance defined as p < 0.05.

Results: There were no significant differences in VAS scores, total rescue analgesic doses (p=0.953), and duration of analgesia (p=0.124) between the 300 mg and 600 mg gabapentin groups. Sedation scores and the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting were comparable across the groups.