Background: Various drugs are administered intra-articularly to provide postoperative analgesia after arthroscopic knee surgery. The purpose of this study was to assess the analgesic effects of intra-articular injection of a dexmedetomidine following knee arthroscopy.
Methods: Forty six patients scheduled for arthroscopic knee surgery under general anaesthesia, were randomly devided into two groups. Intervention group received 1µg/kg dexmedetomidine (D) and isotonic saline. Control group received 25ml isotonic saline (P). Analgesic effects were evaluated by measuring pain intensity (VAS scores) and duration of analgesia.
Results: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, sex and weight. The mean of post-operation pain severity in 1, 3, 6,12, and 24 h was significantly lower in the intervention group (D) in comparison with the control group (P). the mean of the total dose of tramadol consumption was significantly lower in the intervention group in comparison with the control group (P<0.001).
Conclusions: Intra-articular injection of dexmedetomidine at the end of arthroscopic knee surgery, alleviates the patients' pain, reducing the postoperative need for narcotics as analgesics, and increase the first analgesic request after operation.
Keywords: Analgesia; Dexmedetomidine; Intra-articular; Knee surgery; Postoperative pain.