Dexmedetomidine Infusion Versus Ketofol Infusion on The Incidence of Emergence Delirium in Children Undergoing Congenital Inguinal Hernia Repair: A Prospective Randomized Trial.

Emergence delirium (ED) is a disturbance in a child's awareness or attention to his/her environment with disorientation and perceptual alterations including hypersensitivity to stimuli and hyperactive motor behaviour in the immediate post anesthesia period.

Propofol is a non-opioid, non-barbiturate, sedative-hypnotic agent with rapid onset and short duration of action [12]. Ketamine is a phencyclidine derivative classified as a dissociative sedative that provides analgesia and amnesia.

Combination of ketamine with propofol reduces the sedative dose of propofol. The complementary effects of this combination are supposed to produce lower toxicity compared to each drug alone through decreasing required doses. Ketofol; mixed ketamine and propofol has been shown to be effective in emergency room for procedural sedation and for induction for rapid sequence intubation [13,14]. This combination is also effective to prevent ED in pediatric patients undergoing simple surgical procedural in addition to the advantage of better hemodynamic stability.

Dexmedetomidine is a highly selective, alpha2-adrenergic receptor agonist that has been widely used for adult anesthesia and as a sedative in intensive care units. Dexmedetomidine is safe in children due to its hypnotic, analgesic, sedative, and anxiolytic effects. it has been shown to improve intraoperative hemodynamic stability, minimize responses to stimuli, and reduce the need for other anesthetic agents.