Dexmedetomidine affects cerebral activity in preterm infants.

The use of dexmedetomidine (DEX) has been extended in preterm newborns, but the effects on cerebral activity and their relationship with haemodynamic changes has not been studied.We retrospectively studied the effects of DEX administered to 10 preterm newborns, assessing amplitude-integrated EEG (aEEG) parameters, brain regional SO (brSO), heart rate, non-invasive mean blood pressure (MBP), transcutaneous oxygen saturation (SpO), venous pCO2 and haemoglobin (Hb) values, in two 6-hour periods: one starting 6 hours before the beginning of DEX perfusion and the other 6 hours afterwards.DEX infusion led to brSO decrease not associated to heart rate, MBP, SpO, Hb or pCO2 variation, which suggests that brSO decrease could be related to local vasoconstriction.