Intravenous low-dose ketamine injection versus dexmedetomidine infusion for prevention of intraoperative shivering during spinal anesthesia

Mostafa Mansour Houssein, Ibrahim Mohamed Ibrahim

Ain-Shams Journal of Anaesthesiology 2016 9(4):524-530

Background Shivering is considered one of the most common adverse effects that occur during spinal anesthesia. Besides causing patient discomfort, shivering also interferes with patient monitoring and increases tissue oxygen demand. The present study was carried out to compare the effectiveness of intravenous low-dose ketamine (0.25 mg/kg) and dexmedetomidine intravenous infusion in prevention of shivering during spinal anesthesia. Materials and methods Sixty patients of both sexes were included in this prospective randomized-controlled study. Patients were divided randomly into two groups of 30 patients each. Group K (30 patients) received low-dose ketamine (0.25 mg/kg) and group D (30 patients) received dexmedetomidine infusion. The primary outcome measure of this study was intraoperative shivering. The secondary outcome measures were hemodynamic changes, sedation scores, and postoperative side effects. Results Patients in group D had a lower incidence of postspinal anesthesia shivering compared with patients in group K. In all, 13.33% of group K patients had grade 3 shivering in comparison with only 3.33% of patients in group D 10 min after the onset of spinal anesthesia (P=0.031). Deeper sedation was observed in group D patients as 36.67% of group D patients had grade 4 sedation compared with 23.33% of patients in group K after 10 min (P=0.048). Conclusion Dexmedetomidine infusion is more effective as an antishivering and sedating agent than low-dose ketamine injection in patients receiving spinal anesthesia.

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