5. Conclusion
genotoxicity, trauma
OXIDATIVE STRESS, GENOTOXICITY, DNA DAMAGE
ISO inhalation for prolonged period-induced oxidative stress and genotoxicity that attenuated by the use of DEX infusion along with ISO intraoperatively in neurosurgical patients provided hemodynamic stability. The sedative effect of DEX along with its protective role in oxidative stress and DNA damage may have a great translational potential on oxidative injury of anesthetics and play a contributing role in our daily anesthesia practice. However, further clinical studies are needed on other antioxidant and genotoxic system during balanced anesthesia using ISO inhalation and to confirm which receptor pathways affected by DEX administration.One limitation of the study is that whether the observed genotoxic potential was due to volatile anesthetic alone or other contributing factors were present including surgical trauma. Secondly, small sample size of this study is another limitation as total number of patients included in this study was twenty-four with four samples of each patient at different time intervals. This was due to the specified surgery (neurosurgery) and other inclusion criteria that set a limitation. However, further clinical studies are needed with an increased number of patients and generalized prolonged surgical procedures to relate our findings. This study cannot explain the receptor pathways of DNA damage; thus, further studies are required to understand the genotoxic potential of volatile anesthetic and protective effect of dexmedetomidine at genetic level.