Thoracic Epidural Analgesia versus Dexmedetomidine Infusion in Traumatic Flail Chest

Background: Traumatic flail chest is a serious injury that can impair ventilation and affect patient outcome. Thoracic epidural analgesia is the gold standard to provide adequate analgesia in flail chest, however, it may be unavailable in some patients due to coagulopathy, failure or difficult insertion. We compared between parenteral dexmedetomidine and thoracic epidural block with plain local anesthetic in flail chest cases. Patients and methods: fifty eight trauma patients with flail chest randomly allocated into either Group E (n = 29): epidural group, patients received mid-thoracic epidural analgesia using 6 ml mixture of 0.125% bupivacaine and 2 μg/ml fentanyl, which followed by continuous infusion of 6 ml/hour; Group D (n = 29): dexmedetomidine group, patients received loading dose of dexmedetomidine 1 μg/kg over 30 min, after a continuous infusion at a rate of 0.5 μg/kg/hr. The primary outcomes were to assess the effect of analgesic type on ventilation (PaO2/FIO2 ratio, PaCO2). The secondary outcomes were to compare analgesic effect, hemodynamics, the need for ventilation and ICU stay. Result: PaO2/FIO2 ratio was significantly higher in epidural group and PaCO2 was significantly lower in epidural group (p value < 0.05). The incidence of mechanical ventilation was significantly lower in epidural group than in dexmedetomidine group (6 patients group versus 13 patients, p value < 0.04). Mean arterial blood pressure was significantly lower in dexmedetomidine group than in epidural group (94.3 ± 6.84 mmHg versus 102 ± 5.72 mmHg, p value < 0.001). Moreover, heart rate was significantly lower in dexmedetomidine group than epidural group (89.97 ± 6.22 bpm versus 96.07 ± 9.3 bpm, p value = 0.004). VAS was significantly lower in epidural group (p value < 0.001). Throughout different measuring points, RAMSAY score was significantly higher in dexmedetomidine group. Conclusion: Epidural analgesia is more effective than parenteral dexmedetomidine in flail chest, but dexmedetomidine can represent a good alternative if epidural is not possible.