ArticleAnesthesia and pain medicine2020
Effect of preoperative administration of systemic alpha-2 agonists on postoperative pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Article in Anesthesia and pain medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Regional Blocks in the Era of the Opioid Crisis: Evaluating Their Opioid-Sparing Effect.Cureus · 2026Review
- Synthesizing Evidence on Adverse Events of Perioperative Clonidine: An Umbrella Review : Short title: Perioperative Clonidine, Bradycardia and Hypotension.Galen medical journal · 2026Review
- Dexmedetomidine Use and Intraoperative Bradycardia During Radiofrequency Rhizotomy for Trigeminal Neuralgia: A Retrospective Observational Study.Drug design, development and therapy · 2026Observational
- Review
- Two paths, one goal-uniting regional and general anesthesia for optimal surgical care: a narrative review.Ewha medical journal · 2025Article
- The Beneficial and Harmful Effects of Perioperative Clonidine: Protocol for a Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis.Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica · 2025Article
- Antihypertensive drugs and brain function: mechanisms underlying therapeutically beneficial and harmful neuropsychiatric effects.Cardiovascular research · 2023Review
- [Perioperative anxiety and fear of death].Die Anaesthesiologie · 2023Review
- Can Acute Postoperative Pain Management After Tumour Resection Surgery Modulate Risk of Later Recurrence or Metastasis?Frontiers in oncology · 2021Review
- Intranasal Dexmedetomidine on Post-operative Pain and Swelling after Third Molar Impaction Surgery - A Comparative Study.Annals of maxillofacial surgeryArticle
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAlpha-2 agonists have sedative, analgesic, and opioid-sparing effects. Moreover, intraoperative or postoperative systemic administration of alpha-2 adrenergic agonists is known to reduce postoperative pain and opioid consumption. This meta-analysis investigated whether preoperative administration of alpha-2 agonists can affect postoperative pain and opioid consumption.
methodsWe searched the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library (CENTRAL), KoreaMed, and KMbase databases through March 2019 to identify relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the effect of preoperative systemic administration of alpha-2 agonists on postoperative pain and opioid consumption. We conducted a meta-analysis according to the Cochrane Collaboration guidelines. Standardized mean differences (SMDs) of postoperative pain intensity or dose of opioid consumption in the alpha-2 agonist group were extracted and combined using a random-effect model and were compared to those of the control group.
resultsEleven RCTs involving 748 participants were included in this meta-analysis. Preoperative administration of systemic alpha-2 agonists significantly reduced cumulative opioid consumption up to 6 h (SMD, -0.52; 95% confidence interval [-0.90 to -0.14]) and 24 h (SMD, -0.68 [-1.27 to -0.09]) after surgery. Moreover, preoperative administration of alpha-2 agonists significantly reduced postoperative pain intensity at 6 h (SMD, -0.50 [-0.78 to -0.21]) and 24 h (SMD, -0.44 [-0.86 to -0.03]).
conclusionsIn this meta-analysis, high degree of heterogeneity limits the preoperative administration of alpha-2 agonists in reducing postoperative opioid consumption and pain intensity. Future powered large RCTs are required to increase the certainty of evidence on the effect in reducing postoperative opioid consumption and pain intensity.
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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.