General anesthetics and sedatives are administered to millions of children each year to facilitate life-saving surgery and other essential surgical or medical procedures. In the past two decades, mounting evidence from animal and clinical studies have raised concerns that general anesthetics may produce harmful effects in the developing brain and lead to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Factors that may influence the degree of injury include age at the time of drug exposure/surgery and cumulative anesthetic dose.~The Intelligence Quotients of pediatric patients with intracranial tumors are lower when compared with healthy children of same age. The investigators suppose that these patients are more sensitive to the neurotoxic effects of general anesthetics. Dexmedetomidine is an alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonist that provides sedation, anxiolysis, and analgesia, and has been shown to be safe to the brain in animal studies. In clinical studies, the use of dexmedetomidine decreases the consumption of anesthetics and opioids during general anesthesia and suppresses stress response induced by surgery. The investigators hypothesize that dexmedetomidine, when used as an adjuvant to general anesthesia, can reduce the neurotoxic effects of general anesthetics by decreasing anesthetic consumption and inhibiting stress response.~The purpose of this randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled pilot study is to investigate whether dexmedetomidine, when used as an adjuvant to general anesthesia, can decrease the harmful effects of anesthesia and surgery on intelligence development of pediatric patients undergoing craniotomy.
The purpose of this randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled pilot study is to investigate whether dexmedetomidine when used as an adjuvant to general anesthesia can decrease the harmful effects of anesthesia and surgery on intelligence development in pediatric patients undergoing craniotomy.