Anaesthesia and intensive care
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Mar 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialLow-dose epidural dexmedetomidine improves thoracic epidural anaesthesia for nephrectomy.
Thoracic epidural anaesthesia alone is an applied technique of anaesthesia for nephrectomy which has both advantages and limitations. Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective alpha2-adrenoreceptor agonist which has both central and peripheral analgesic properties. Forty patients undergoing nephrectomy were enrolled in this clinical trial and allocated randomly to two groups, a control group (C group) and a dexmedetomidine group (D group). ⋯ Compared with the C group, pain scores were significantly lower in the first four postoperative hours in the D group (two hours rest P=0.038; two hours activity P=0.009; four hours rest P=0.044; four hours activity P=0.003). The total amount of flurbiprofen analgesic was significantly lower in the D group compared with the C group (P=0.03). Epidural dexmedetomidine 0.5 µg/kg appears to intensify thoracic epidural anaesthesia with levobupivacaine.