Current State of Pain Treatment: Does Dexmedetomidine Have a Role to Play?

Opioids are a mainstay in the modern practice of anesthesia and perioperative pain management. However, due to the crisis surrounding opioid use and abuse, as well as the undesirable side effects that occur with normal use, anesthesia providers are searching for ways to curtail perioperative opioid use. The advent of various analgesic adjuncts such as dexmedetomidine has opened new avenues for multimodal analgesic approaches to perioperative pain management. A review of current research focused on these analgesic adjuncts and the drawbacks of opioid use reveals increased understanding and complexity of the physiology of pain, its treatment, and our understanding of pharmacologic mechanisms of action of analgesics. This course will examine the current limitations of opioids, provide a brief overview of the physiology of pain, and discuss the pharmacologic mechanism of action of dexmedetomidine and patient populations in which its use might be advantageous.