Effects of Single Dose of Intravenous Dexmedetomidine on Hyperbaric Bupivacaine Spinal Anaesthesia: A Randomized Study

Single Dose of Intravenous Dexmedetomidine on Hyperbaric Bupivacaine Spinal Anaesthesia

Abstract

Background: The present study is designed to evaluate the effect of intravenous dexmedetomidine on spinal anesthesia with 0.5% of hyperbaric bupivacaine. Objective: To evaluate the effect of intravenous dexmedetomidine on sensory regression, hemodynamic profile, level of sedation and postoperative analgesia.  Subjects and Methods: Sixty patients of American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I/II patients undergoing elective surgeries under spinal anaesthesia were randomized into two groups of 30 each. Immediately after subarachnoid block with 3 ml of 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine, patients in group D received a loading dose of 0.5 ?g/kg of dexmedetomidine intravenously over a period of ten minutes, whereas, patients in group C received an equivalent quantity of normal saline. Results: Total number of doses of analgesic given as injection diclofenac sodium 75 mg (IM), in Group D was 2 0.000 doses and in Group C was 2.85 0.301 doses, which was highly significant as  P=0.00001 < 0.01   (t-test at 1% level of significance). Conclusion: Single dose IV dexmedetomidine of 0.5 mcg/kg prolongs the duration of sensory blockade and analgesia and reduces the requirement of analgesics with lesser incidence of bradycardia and hypotension introperatively as well as postoperatively.