Recovery and pain reduction in children improved by drug prior to surgery

A new research from The Cochrane Library proves that clonidine (a medication) is helpful and is a good alternative for children who encounter pain prior to surgery and anxiety following surgery. The lead author of this study is Allan Cyna, Ph.D., senior consultant anesthesiologist at Women`s and Children`s Hospital at the University of Adelaide, situated in Australia. The results of this study prove that 4mcg of clonidine given for children decreased side effects, compared to other pain medications. There were 11 studies compared by researchers which originate from Brazil, Jordan, Japan, Turkey, Canada, Greece, USA, China and Sweden. There were 742 children involved in the study, younger than 18 years. “Our review may encourage other physicians, health care professionals, consumers or others to consider clonidine as a premedication where postoperative pain is likely”, said Cyna. “Even though our findings are encouraging, they are not conclusive because the studies to date are small and vary a lot in their methodologies”. Lonnie Zeltzer, M.D., director of the Children`s Pain and Comfort Care Program at Mattel Children`s Hospital at UCLA was also involved in this study.