• C W Cheung, Q Qiu, A C L Ying, S W Choi, W L Law, and M G Irwin.
• Laboratory and Clinical Research Institute for Pain, Department of Anaesthesiology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
• Anaesthesia. 2014 Nov 1;69(11):1214-21.

AbstractIn this double-blind, randomised study, 100 patients undergoing open or conventional laparoscopic colorectal surgery received an intra-operative loading dose of dexmedetomidine 1 μg.kg(-1) followed by an infusion of 0.5 μg.kg(-1) .h(-1) , or a bolus and infusion of saline 0.9% of equivalent volume. Forty-six patients in the dexmedetomidine group and 50 in the saline group completed the study. The area under the curve of numerical rating scores for pain at rest for 1-48 h postoperatively was significantly lower in the patients receiving dexmedetomidine (p = 0.041). There was no difference in morphine consumption, duration of recovery ward or hospital stay. From the data obtained in this study, we calculated a number needed to treat for effective pain relief of 4. Intra-operative dexmedetomidine in colorectal surgery resulted in a reduction in resting pain scores, but there was no morphine-sparing effect or improvement in patients' recovery outcome measures.© 2014 The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland.

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