Dexmedetomidine use for palliative sedation: a case report

Palliative end-of-life care, in which signs of dying with the deterio-ration of vital organs develope and end with death, is a particularly important part of comprehensive palliative care.Palliative sedation must strictly adhere to the ethical aspects and in no way goes beyond the lines of euthanasia.Sedation should be carefully planned and discussed with the patient, relatives and other medical specialists. A multidisciplinary approach is imperative. Each of the specialists of the multidisci-plinary team can illuminate their own aspect. At the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, medical specialists from various disciplines are engaged in palliative medicine and palliative sedation.This paper describes the clinical case of a patient who initially decided for the palliative sedation. Since it was inpossible to achieve adequate sedation depth with standard agents, we decided to use dexmedetomidine. With dexmedetomidine shallow sedation was achieved. Dexmedetomidine is an effective and safe medication that seeks its place in palliative medicine. Only some case reports of this field have been published, but there is no randomised study yet published. We are planning such a study in the future.