Mini-dose Dexmedetomidine-Esketamine Supplemented Analgesia in Patients at High-risk of OSA

Official title

Mini-dose Dexmedetomidine-Esketamine Supplemented Analgesia for Postoperative Sleep Promotion in Patients at High-risk of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Randomized Trial

Overview

Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are at increased risk of developing sleep disturbances after surgery. Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective α2-adrenergic agonist with sedative, analgesic, and anxiolytic effects. Ketamine is a noncompetitive N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist. Esketamine is the S-enantiomer of racemic ketamine and twice as potent as racemic ketamine for analgesia. A recent trial showed that mini-dose esketamine-dexmedetomidine in combination with opioids improved analgesia and subjective sleep quality after scoliosis correction surgery. This trial is designed to test the hypothesis that mini-dose dexmedetomidine-esketamine supplemented analgesia may improve postoperative sleep quality in patients at high-risk of OSA.

Detailed description

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is characterized by repetitive narrowing or obstruction of the upper airway during sleep, resulting in recurrent hypoxemia and hypercapnia and disordered sleep. During the postoperative period, the residual effects of anesthetics, sedatives, analgesics, and muscle relaxants suppress the activation of airway muscles; surgical stress, pain, and environmental interference further deteriorate sleep quality. All these factors aggravate the pathophysiological changes in OSA patients and may lead to worse perioperative outcomes, including increased respiratory and cardiac events, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and delirium, as well as prolonged length of hospital stay.

Opioids are commonly used for postoperative analgesia. Patients with OSA have significantly increased sensitivity to the side effects of opioids, such as central respiratory depression (reduced central respiratory drive) and peripheral respiratory depression (airway collapse). Opioids themselves can also cause sleep disturbances, as manifested by sleep fragmentation, decreased rapid-eye-movement sleep, and frequent nightmares. On the other hand, sleep deprivations can also lead to increased pain sensitivity and thus opioid consumption. Therefore, it is important to explore better postoperative analgesia to improve postoperative sleep quality of patients at high-risk of OSA.

Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective α2-adrenergic agonist with sedative, analgesic, and anxiolytic effects. It produces sedation by activating the endogenous sleep-promoting pathway and produces a state resembling nonrapid eye movement sleep. Ketamine is a noncompetitive N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist. When given in sub-anaesthetic doses, ketamine produces analgesic and anti-hyperalgesic effects and is recommended as a component of multimodal analgesia. Esketamine is the S-enantiomer of racemic ketamine and approximately twice as potent as racemic ketamine for analgesia.

A recent trial showed that mini-dose esketamine-dexmedetomidine in combination with opioids improved analgesia and subjective sleep quality after scoliosis correction surgery. This trial is designed to test the hypothesis that mini-dose dexmedetomidine-esketamine supplemented analgesia may improve sleep quality in patients at high-risk of OSA after thoracic or abdominal surgery.

Interventions

• Drug Dexmedetomidine-esketamine combination
  Patient-controlled analgesia is established with dexmedetomidine (1 μg/ml), esketamine (1 mg/ml), and sufentanil (1 μg/ml) in a total volume of 100 ml. The pump is programmed to deliver 2-ml boluses at 6 to 8-minute lockout intervals with a background infusion rate at 1 ml/h. Patient-controlled analgesia is provided for at least 24 hours but no more than 48 hours after surgery.
• Drug Placebo
  Patient-controlled analgesia is established with sufentanil (1 μg/ml) in a total volume of 100 ml. The pump is programmed to deliver 2-ml boluses at 6 to 8-minute lockout intervals with a background infusion rate at 1 ml/h. Patient-controlled analgesia is provided for at least 24 hours but no more than 48 hours after surgery.

Primary outcome measures

• Subjective sleep quality during the first night after surgery. [Time frame: During the first night after surgery.]

Secondary outcome measures (5)

• Sleep structure parameters during the first night after surgery. [Time frame: During the first night after surgery]
• Cumulative subjective sleep quality score after surgery [Time frame: During the first three nights after surgery.]
• Proportion of patients with poor sleep quality after surgery. [Time frame: During the first three nights after surgery.]
• Area under curve of pain intensity score within 3 days after surgery. [Time frame: Up to 3 days after surgery.]
• Subjective sleep quality at 30 days after surgery. [Time frame: At 30 days after surgery.]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

• Aged ≥18 years but ≤80 years;
• Preoperative diagnosis of OSA, or judged to be at moderate-to-high risk of OSA according to the STOP-Bang Questionnaire;
• Scheduled to undergo thoracoscopic or laparoscopic surgery under general anesthesia, with an expected surgical duration of ≥1 hours, and required patient-controlled intravenous analgesia (PCIA) after surgery.

Exclusion criteria

• Diagnosed as central sleep apnea syndrome;
• Previous history of schizophrenia, epilepsy, Parkinson disease, or myasthenia gravis.
• History of schizophrenia, or having antipsychotic drugs (including antidepressants or anxiolytics);
• Inability to communicate in the preoperative period because of coma, profound dementia, or deafness;
• History of drug or alcohol dependence, or sedative or hypnotic therapy within 1 month before surgery;
• Contraindications to ketamine (such as hyperthyroidism, pheochromocytoma, or glaucoma);
• Sick sinus syndrome, severe sinus bradycardia (<50 beats per minute), or second-degree or above atrioventricular block without pacemaker;
• Contraindications to high-flow nasal cannula therapy (such as mediastinal emphysema, shock or hypotension, cerebrospinal fluid leakage, nasosinusitis, otitis media, or deviation of nasal septum);
• Severe hepatic dysfunction (Child-Pugh class C), severe renal dysfunction (requirement of renal replacement therapy), severe heart dysfunction (preoperative New York Heart Association functional classification ≥3 or left ventricular ejection fraction <30%), or ASA classification IV or above;
• Expected intensive care unit (ICU) admission with tracheal intubation after surgery;
• Other conditions that are considered unsuitable for study participation.

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: No

Study design

Allocation

Randomized

Model

Parallel assignment

Masking

Quadruple blind

Primary purpose

Prevention

Study locations

China · 1 center

• Peking University First Hospital — Beijing

Publications

• Gottlieb DJ, Punjabi NM. Diagnosis and Management of Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Review. JAMA. 2020 Apr 14;323(14):1389-1400. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.3514. PMID 32286648
• Benjafield AV, Ayas NT, Eastwood PR, Heinzer R, Ip MSM, Morrell MJ, Nunez CM, Patel SR, Penzel T, Pepin JL, Peppard PE, Sinha S, Tufik S, Valentine K, Malhotra A. Estimation of the global prevalence and burden of obstructive sleep apnoea: a literature-based analysis. Lancet Respir Med. 2019 Aug;7(8):687-698. doi: 10.1016/S2213-2600(19)30198-5. Epub 2019 Jul 9. PMID 31300334
• Young T, Evans L, Finn L, Palta M. Estimation of the clinically diagnosed proportion of sleep apnea syndrome in middle-aged men and women. Sleep. 1997 Sep;20(9):705-6. doi: 10.1093/sleep/20.9.705. PMID 9406321
• Kapur VK, Auckley DH, Chowdhuri S, Kuhlmann DC, Mehra R, Ramar K, Harrod CG. Clinical Practice Guideline for Diagnostic Testing for Adult Obstructive Sleep Apnea: An American Academy of Sleep Medicine Clinical Practice Guideline. J Clin Sleep Med. 2017 Mar 15;13(3):479-504. doi: 10.5664/jcsm.6506. PMID 28162150
• Brown KA. Intermittent hypoxia and the practice of anesthesia. Anesthesiology. 2009 Apr;110(4):922-7. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0b013e31819c480a. PMID 19293703
• Chung F, Liao P, Yegneswaran B, Shapiro CM, Kang W. Postoperative changes in sleep-disordered breathing and sleep architecture in patients with obstructive sleep apnea. Anesthesiology. 2014 Feb;120(2):287-98. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0000000000000040. PMID 24158049
• Hai F, Porhomayon J, Vermont L, Frydrych L, Jaoude P, El-Solh AA. Postoperative complications in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a meta-analysis. J Clin Anesth. 2014 Dec;26(8):591-600. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2014.05.010. Epub 2014 Oct 16. PMID 25439403
• Sun X, Yu J, Luo J, Xu S, Yang N, Wang Y. Meta-analysis of the association between obstructive sleep apnea and postoperative complications. Sleep Med. 2022 Mar;91:1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.sleep.2021.11.019. Epub 2022 Feb 11. PMID 35231774

Identifiers

NCT: NCT06566482 · 2024-234

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗