Hyun‐Jung Shin

Background Emergence agitation or delirium can occur in pediatric patients after anesthesia. Dexmedetomidine is known to reduce the impairment of postoperative cognitive function. Aims This study aimed to identify the role of intranasal administration of dexmedetomidine in lowering the development of emergence agitation or emergence delirium in pediatric patients after general anesthesia. Methods Electronic databases, including PubMed, EMBASE, CENTRAL, Scopus, and Web of Science, were searched to identify studies. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who underwent emergence agitation or emergence delirium after the surgery. Secondary outcomes included emergence time and incidence of postoperative nausea and/or vomiting. We estimated the odds ratio and mean difference with 95% confidence intervals for the determination of effect size using a random‐effects model. Results In total, 2103 pediatric patients from 20 randomized controlled trials were included in the final analysis. The incidence of emergence agitation or emergence delirium was 13.6% in the dexmedetomidine group and 33.2% in the control group. The pooled effect size revealed that intranasal dexmedetomidine administration significantly reduced the incidence of postoperative emergence agitation or emergence delirium in pediatric patients undergoing surgery under general anesthesia (odds ratio 0.25, 95% confidence interval 0.18–0.34; p = .0000; I 2 = 37.74%). Additionally, significant difference was observed in emergence time between the two groups (mean difference 2.42, 95% confidence interval 0.37–4.46; p = .021; I 2 = 98.40%). Children in the dexmedetomidine group had a significantly lower incidence of postoperative nausea and/or vomiting than those in the control group (odds ratio 0.39, 95% confidence interval 0.24–0.64; p = .0002; I 2 = 0.00%). Conclusions Intranasal dexmedetomidine reduced the incidence of emergence agitation or emergence delirium in pediatric patients after general anesthesia.