Opioid-free anesthesia (OFA) is a multimodal analgesic approach designed to eliminate the intraoperative use of systemic, neuraxial, or intracavitary opioids. This technique employs a combination of antinociceptive agents targeting various pathways within the central and peripheral nervous systems to achieve effective analgesia.
Dexmedetomidine (DEX), a highly selective α2-adrenoreceptor agonist, is a centrally acting non-opioid agent increasingly utilized in clinical practice for its antinociceptive and anxiolytic properties. Only a few prospective randomized controlled trials have specifically examined the postoperative analgesic efficacy of intraoperative dexmedetomidine infusion in patients undergoing spinal surgery, with limited data focusing on this as a primary endpoint. Importantly, no clinical studies have investigated its analgesic impact in patients undergoing spinal surgery under general anesthesia.