Clinical Trial – Intrathecal Ketamine, Dexmedetomidine and Both With Bupivacaine for Postoperative Abdominal Cancer Surgery Pain

Currently, opioids are widely used for pain relief, but they often provide sub-optimal
analgesia with occasional serious side effects. Preservative-free ketamine hydrochloride was
introduced as a spinal anesthetic more than twenty years ago and found to have advantages
over local anesthetics. Intrathecal dexmedetomidine provides an analgesic effect in
postoperative pain without severe sedation. The objectives of this study were to compare the
efficacy and safety of intrathecally administered dexmedetomidine, ketamine, or their
combination when added to bupivacaine for postoperative analgesia in major abdominal cancer
surgery.