The Analgesic Effect of Epidural Clonidine After Spinal Surgery: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial

Abstract

Low-dose epidural clonidine significantly reduced the demand for morphine and reduced postoperative nausea with few side effects.

Immediate Pain Response to Interlaminar Lumbar Epidural Steroid Administration: Response Characteristics and Effects of Anesthetic Concentration

“…62 In comparisons of postoperative pain control using top-off epidural lidocaine anesthetic or epidural clonidine, epidural saline had a negligible effect on postoperative pain, with clear response to epidural lidocaine or clonidine injection. [63][64][65] Alternatively, when analyzing somatosensory evoked potentials, decrease in amplitude is demonstrated with epidural lignocaine only, but increasing signal latency is demonstrated with both epidural lignocaine and saline, potentially related to a cooling effect. 66 Washout effect can also occur with epidural saline, diluting local inflammatory mediators which either independently act on epidural nociceptors or a contribution to the epidural anesthetic effect.…”

A Comparative Study of Qualitative Analgesia for Postoperative Period between Ropivacaine and Ropivacaine with Clonidine in Epidural Block

“…The groups did not differ statistically concerning PONV and antiemetic drug consumption. 17 Sedation is a side effect frequently associated with the use of clonidine in postoperative analgesia, often in conjunction with opioids. Probably the low dose of clonidine used here does not contribute to sedation.…”

Regional Analgesia Techniques for Spine Surgery: A Review with Special Reference to Scoliosis Fusion

“…Less commonly used adjuvant substances, used either alone or in combination are clonidine [51][52][53], methylprednisolone [54,55] and midazolam [56]. Bonhomme et al found the combination of clonidine with morphine to be superior to a combination with bupivacaine [51].…”

“…Other advantages were less side-effects such as nausea/vomiting [9,34,41,53,55], faster return of bowel function and oral intake [23, 48,54], faster ambulation [52], enhanced patient satisfaction and in a few studies faster hospital discharge [21].…”