Published Paper Details:

Background and Aim: Dexmedetomidine is a ?2 agonist drugs which acts at both supraspinal and spinal level and modulate the transmission of nociceptive signals in the central nervous system. This drug has become an ideal adjuvant during general anesthesia, especially when stress is expected. The aim of this study was to see the efficiency of low dose of dexmedetomidine infusion on haemodynamic response during laryngoscopy, endotracheal intubation, creation of pneumoperitoneum and extubation in patients undergoing laparoscopic hernia repair. Methods: Sixty patients of American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I and II undergoing laparoscopic hernia repair were randomly allocated into two groups of 30 patients each. Group X received 50 ml NS and Group Y received Dexmedetomidine 0.6mcg/kg/hr (0.5 ml in normal saline 50ml/hr). All the patients were observed for vitals like HR, MAP, oxygen saturation at regular intervals including before starting the infusion, 10 minutes after starting the infusion, after induction, after intubation, after creation of pneumoperitoneum and after extubation.Patients were also observed for post-operative sedation and analgesia requirements. The results were statistically done using spss (statistical package for social sciences) soft ware version 15.0, chi-square test was used for qualitative (sex) HR, SBP, DBP. P-value< 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: In Group NS, after starting the infusion there was no significant change in HR and MAP but these increased significantly above the baseline values after intubation and extubation (p<0.01) and significantly after pneumoperitoneum (p<0.05). While as in Dexmedetomidine groups, after starting the infusion, HR decreased significantly below the baseline value and MAP also decreased highly significantly among the patients who receive dexmedetomidine infusion. Pneumoperitoneum did not produce significant effect in dexmedetomidine group. Conclusion: Infusion dose of 0.6mcg/kg/hr without any bolus dose serves very good adjuvant to control haemodynamic pressor response to intubation, pneumoperitoneum and extubation in patients undergoing laparoscopic hernia repair.