Optimal Single Dose Intrathecal Dexmedetomidine for Postoperative Analgesia
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2017-06-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Spinal anesthesia is a commonly used technique for lower limb surgeries offering better
quality of postoperative analgesia, lower incidence of side effects, and shorter
post-anesthesia care unit stay than general anesthesia. However, the relatively short
duration of action of the currently available local anesthetics (LAs) make these advantages
short-lived.
The risk for local anesthetic toxicity (LAST) increases with the trials to use higher
concentrations or volumes of intrathecal local anesthetics to increase the duration of
analgesia.
Dexmedetomidine has the potential to prolong the duration of perioperative analgesia without
the need for using high doses of local anesthetics and hence with decreasing the potential
risk of local anesthetic, but the increased likelihood adverse effects such as short term
bradycardia and prolonged duration of motor block may offset these benefits.