Adding Dexamethasone to Lidocaine in Scalp Incision Infiltration for Craniotomy

Approximately 55‐87% of patients undergoing craniotomy experience moderate to severe painduring the first 48 hours after surgery, which negatively influences their postoperativerehabilitation.Recently, local infiltration of analgesia (LIA) has been widely performed clinically as apromising analgesic method that could avoid the side effects of analgesics but only has ashort pain‐free duration; researchers have clarified that the addition of dexamethasoneto LIA could provide significant analgesic effects and significantly prolong the durationof analgesic effects without obvious complications for various types of surgeries.To date, no studies have evaluated the addition of dexamethasone to LIA for patientsreceiving craniotomy.