Trial reportIntensive care medicine2012
Sleep quality of mechanically ventilated patients sedated with dexmedetomidine.
Trial report in Intensive care medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 4 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 41 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Impact of Dexmedetomidine on Long-term Outcome in Elderly Patients After Noncardiac Surgery: 3-year Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of Dexmedetomidine Supplemented Analgesia on Long-term Survival in Elderly Patients After Cancer Surgery: a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of Dexmedetomidine Supplemented Analgesia on Incidence of Delirium in Elderly Patients After Cancer Surgery: a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial
Impact of Dexmedetomidine on Long-term Outcome in Elderly Patients After Noncardiac Surgery: 5-year Follow-up of a Randomized Controlled Trial
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 96 citations in OpenAlex.
- 2021 KSCCM clinical practice guidelines for pain, agitation, delirium, immobility, and sleep disturbance in the intensive care unit.Acute and critical care · 2022Guideline
- Effect of Dexmedetomidine on Postoperative Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review.Drug design, development and therapy · 2021Pooled it
- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Examining the Impact of Sleep Disturbance on Postoperative Delirium.Critical care medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Pharmacological interventions to improve sleep in hospitalised adults: a systematic review.BMJ open · 2016Pooled it
- Alpha-2 agonists for long-term sedation during mechanical ventilation in critically ill patients.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2015Pooled it
- Effect of the orexin receptor antagonist, suvorexant, on sleep architecture in the early postoperative period following cardiac surgery: a randomized controlled trial.Critical care (London, England) · 2026Trial
- Effects of Dexmedetomidine Nasal Sprays on Postoperative Sleep Quality in Patients Who Underwent Laparoscopic Gynaecological Surgery: A Single-Centre, Double-Blind, Randomized Controlled Study.Drug design, development and therapy · 2025Trial
- Sleep quality and quantity determined by polysomnography in mechanically ventilated critically ill patients randomized to dexmedetomidine or placebo.Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica · 2023Trial
- A randomized placebo-controlled double-blind study of dexmedetomidine on postoperative sleep quality in patients with endoscopic sinus surgery.BMC anesthesiology · 2022Trial
- Oral Dexmedetomidine Promotes Non-rapid Eye Movement Stage 2 Sleep in Humans.Anesthesiology · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Dexmedetomidine promotes biomimetic non-rapid eye movement stage 3 sleep in humans: A pilot study.Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2018Trial
- Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Dexmedetomidine-Induced Electroencephalogram Oscillations.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Article
- Therapeutic Potential of Anesthesiology for Sleep Disorders in the Perioperative Period.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- Anesthesia-Informed Approaches to Insomnia: Shared Neural Circuits, Biomimetic Sleep, and Emerging Interventional Strategies.Nature and science of sleep · 2026Review
- Article
- Dexmedetomidine for postoperative delirium in surgical patients: a mini-review of mechanisms, clinical evidence, and practical implementation.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Review
- Dexmedetomidine accelerates photoentrainment and affects sleep structure through the activation of SCNCommunications biology · 2024Article
- A multicentre point prevalence study of nocturnal hours awake and enteral pharmacological sleep aids in patients admitted to Australian and New Zealand intensive care units.Critical care and resuscitation : journal of the Australasian Academy of Critical Care Medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeDexmedetomidine is thought to activate an endogenous pathway that naturally promotes non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. Dexmedetomidine may induce restorative sleep, that is, NREM stage 3 and 4 (slow wave sleep; SWS) or sleep continuity in mechanically ventilated patients. Few data have been published, however, on the sleep characteristics of mechanically ventilated patients during dexmedetomidine infusion.
methodsWe recorded polysomnography (PSG) for 24 h in mechanically ventilated patients sedated with dexmedetomidine. Dexmedetomidine (0.2-0.7 μg/kg/h) was administered intravenously to maintain the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale between -1 and -4 only during the nighttime (9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.). During the daytime, we interrupted the sedatives and analgesics unless the patient complained of discomfort. When this occurred midazolam or opioids were administered intermittently. Sleep stages and the frequency of arousal/awakening during the nighttime were analyzed using Rechtschaffen and Kales criteria.
resultsFor the ten mechanically ventilated adult patients recruited into the study, the median total sleep time (TST) during the night was 4.7 h (IQR, 4.2-8.1 h), and 78 % of sleep occurred during the night (median 78 %, IQR: 69-88 %). Sleep architecture was exclusively NREM sleep stage 1 (median 28.9 % of TST) and stage 2 (median 71.2 % of TST). Neither SWS (median 0 % of TST) nor rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (median 0 % of TST) was observed. Median frequency of arousals/awakenings was 9.3/h (IQR, 3-19.5/h).
conclusionsIn mechanically ventilated patients, nighttime infusion of dexmedetomidine preserved the day-night cycle of sleep but induced severely disturbed sleep architecture without evidence of SWS or REM sleep.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.