Dexmedetomidine Pharmacology

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2020

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dexmedetomidine is a selective alpha-2-adrenergic agonist with sedative characteristics.

Dexmedetomidine is commonly used in ICU and procedural sedation, as well as postoperative pain.

A few of the more serious adverse effects of dexmedetomidine to keep an eye on including bradyarrhythmias/bradycardia and hypotension.

Dexmedetomidine undergoes hepatic metabolism, meaning a dose reduction may be required in patients with impaired hepatic function.

Major drug interactions to monitoring for with dexmedetomidine include co-administration with anesthetics, sedatives, hypnotics, and opioids, as it may lead to an enhancement of effects.

It is also important to note that dexmedetomidine may produce withdrawal symptoms if used for longer than 24 hours.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.
0:06.6	Thanks so much for listening today. I always want to remind you guys, go to real lifepharmacology.com
0:13.2	and subscribe for our email list so you know when we've got a new podcast available. In addition,
0:20.2	we'll get you a 31-page on the top 200 drugs. So a great
0:25.5	little resource for any student that's going through pharmacology, pharmacotherapy, various classes
0:33.0	like that, where I cover the basics and really the most important clinical pearls on those top
0:38.4	200 drugs so go check that out for free just for signing up real-life pharmacology
0:44.2	dot com so let's get into the drug of the day today so I had a request to do
0:51.8	Dex Metatomitomitone so that is what I'm going to cover today.
0:56.8	Brand name of this medication is Presidex,
0:59.8	which is much easier to say for most people that aren't familiar with the drug.
1:06.3	This medication, the way I think about it,
1:09.9	are an easy way to help me remember some of the adverse effects.
1:14.7	I do remember the drug clonidine.
1:18.3	Clonidine is also an alpha-2 agonist.
1:23.1	And if you think about what clonidine is used for, if you've seen it, it's used, it can be used
1:29.2	for a lot of stuff, but it's primarily classified as an anti-hypertensive medication. So I think
1:37.1	about that in terms of the adverse effect profile and what we might see there. Now, Dex Metatomidine is classified as a sedative agent used in ICU sedation, procedural sedation,
1:54.6	anesthesia, things like that as far as its primary use.
1:59.6	It's not typically used like Clonidine would be used
2:03.6	to lower blood pressure, but it's got a similar mechanism
2:08.6	of action that way.
	...

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