Bielka K, et al. - Researchers assessed the efficacy and safety of dexmedetomidine (DEX) infusion in adult patients (18–79 years), with American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) physical status I–II, undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) and randomly assigned to 0.5 μg/kg/h DEX infusion from induction of anaesthesia to extubation or normal saline infusion. Both during and after elective LC, improved analgesia was achieved with intraoperative DEX infusion, which was noted to be safe and effective as an analgesic. With DEX, a significant attenuation in the number of patients with severe postoperative pain, postoperative morphine consumption and prolonged time to first use of rescue analgesia was achieved.