A prospective randomized study comparing recovery following anesthesia with a combination of intravenous dexmedetomidine and desflurane or sevoflurane in spinal surgeries.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Desflurane and sevoflurane are inhalational anesthetics which provide stable intraoperative hemodynamics and rapid emergence from anesthesia. Dexmedetomidine is an α2-agonist with sedative and hypnotic effects. We compared recovery following anesthesia with a combination of a continuous intravenous infusion of dexmedetomidine and desflurane or sevoflurane in cases of spine surgeries because no such data are available from India.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

It was a single-blind, prospective, randomized study. After institutional ethics committee approval, patients were randomly allocated to one of the two groups of fifty patients each. Group D received desflurane and Group S received sevoflurane, along with dexmedetomidine 0.5 μg/kg/h IV infusion for maintenance of anesthesia.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Extubation time (ET) in Group D was shorter by 4.2 min than in Group S (10.1 ± 2.2 and 14.2 ± 1.3; = 0.004). Postoperative recovery, postoperative analgesic, and antiemetic requirement between the groups were comparable The mean dial setting required to maintain the minimum alveolar concentration of 1 intraoperatively was 3.1 for desflurane and 0.7 for sevoflurane.