Background: Paediatric patients undergoing lower abdominal surgeries require adequate pain relief peri operatively, which is often neglected. Various methods of pain relief in paediatric patients are systemic opioids, NSAIDS and regional anaesthesia techniques like caudal block. Recently a newer technique i.e. ultrasound guided transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block is being taken into consideration. Therefore, we aimed to compare efficacy of USG guided TAP block Vs. Caudal block in paediatric patients undergoing lower abdominal surgeries for post-operative analgesia.

Methods: Fifty patients were randomly allocated in two equal groups- group A received TAP block and group B received caudal block. Our study included children of age group one to ten years posted for lower abdominal surgeries. Both the blocks were performed after same general anaesthesia technique. We compared requirement of intra-operative additional analgesia, vital parameters, post op pain score and time of rescue analgesia. The entire data was statistically analyzed using SPSS software. The inter-group comparison is done using Chi-square test/ Fisher’s exact probability test.

Result: Intra-operative pulse rate did not differ significantly between two groups. The average requirement of intra-operative analgesia did not differ significantly in both the groups. The average post-operative Pain Score was significantly higher in group B compared to group A after 180 min (p=0.001). Significantly higher proportion of children from Group B required rescue analgesia compared to Group A (p=0.001).

Conclusion: We conclude that USG guided TAP block is better alternative to caudal block for post operative analgesia in children undergoing lower abdominal surgeries.