continuous dexmedetomidine infusion reduces postoperative cognitive dysfunction and postoperative pain in patients undergoing laparotomy surgery: single-blinded, randomized controlled trial

Background: postoperative cognitive dysfunction (pocd) is a major concern in anesthesia, leading to increased morbidity and longer hospital stays. our study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of target-controlled infusion (tci) dexmedetomidine in reducing the incidence of pocd following laparotomy surgery.methods: a single-blinded, randomized controlled trial involving 107 patients aged >18 years old undergoing laparotomy surgery was conducted. patients were randomly assigned to 54 patients in group d (tci dexmedetomidine with a target plasma of 1 ng/ml) and 53 patients in group i (sevoflurane at 0.8% concentration).results: our study showed subjects whose anesthesia was maintained by tci dexmedetomidine had a lower chance of developing pocd (p=0.043) and experienced less pain at 12 hours (p=0.049) and 24 hours (p=0.049) in the postoperative period, compared to the control group. there were no significant differences between both groups in intraoperative map (p=0.290) and hr (p=0.453).conclusion: maintaining anesthesia using conox®-guided tci dexmedetomidine reduces the incidence of pocd and postoperative pain in laparotomy patients who underwent general anesthesia.