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Efficacy of intra-articular dexmedetomidine for postoperative analgesia in arthroscopic knee surgery
S Paul1, D P Bhattacharjee, S Ghosh
1Department of Pharmacology, National Medical College, Kolkata, India. drsuhritapaul@yahoo.co.in
Introduction:
Various drugs are administered intraarticularly to provide postoperative analgesia after arthroscopic knee surgery, of which opioids and alpha2 agonists could be of particular interest.
Methods:
Sixty patients undergoing elective knee arthroscopy were randomly assigned to two groups (n = 30). Group R received 19 ml of 0.25% ropivacaine and 1 ml of isotonic saline (total volume 20 ml) intraarticularly. Group RD received 100 microg (1 ml) of dexmedetomidine added to 19 ml of 0.25% ropivacaine intra-articularly (total volume 20 ml). Analgesic effect was evaluated by measuring pain intensity (VAS score) and duration of analgesia.
Results:
A longer delay was observed between intraarticular injection of study medication and first requirement of supplementary analgesic in group RD (10.84 +/- 2.6 hours) compared to group R (5.38 +/- 1.4 hours). Total consumption of fentanyl citrate in postoperative period was significantly less in group RD. No significant side effects were noted.
Conclusion:
Dexmedetomidine, added as adjunct to ropivacaine in patients undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, improve the quality and duration of postoperative analgesia.
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