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Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of perioperative dexmedetomidine (DEX) combined with lidocaine intravenous infusion on relieving postoperative pain and improving recovery for patients undergoing thyroidectomy.Materials and Methods: A total of 138 patients undergoing thyroidectomy with general anesthesia were randomly divided into 4 groups: lidocaine (1.5 mg/kg bolus followed by 2 mg/kg/h infusion) in the group L, DEX (0.5 µg/kg) in the group D, lidocaine (same as the group L) with DEX (0.5 µg/kg) in the group L+D, and placebo as normal saline in the group C. All drugs were infused until the end of the surgery. The visual analog scale (VAS) scores of patients at 1, 4, 8, 12, and 24 hours following surgery, opioid requirement, propofol consumption, incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting, awaking time, hemodynamic variables, and any adverse effects were assessed.Results: Compared with the group C, the VAS scores in the group L+D were significantly lower until 8 hours after surgery (P < 0.05), while the VAS scores were significantly decreased just until 4 hours in the group L and 1 hour in the group D after surgery (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in opioid consumption between 4 groups. Propofol consumption in the group L+D was significantly lower than other groups (P < 0.05). Compared with the group C, the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting in the group L+D was lower (P < 0.05), and awaking time in the group L+D and the group L was shorter (P < 0.05). Conclusion:DEX combined with lidocaine infusion can effectively attenuate the postoperative pain without any serious adverse events, which may improve postoperative recovery in patients undergoing thyroidectomy.

Digital polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a fast-developed technology, which makes it possible to provide absolute quantitative results. However, this technology has not been widely used in research field or clinical diagnostics. Although digital PCR has been born for two decades, the products on this subject still suffer from either high cost or cumbersome user experience, hence very few labs have the willingness or budget to routinely use such product; On the other hand, the unique sensitivity of dPCR over traditional qPCR shows great potential applications. Here, a cost-effective digital PCR method based on a microfluidic printing system was introduced, trying to overcome those shortcomings. The microfluidic droplet printing technology was utilized in this study to directly generate droplet array containing PCR reaction solution onto the simple glass substrate for the subsequent PCR and imaging, which could be done with any regular flat-panel PCR machine and microscope. The method introduces a new perspective in droplet-based digital PCR in that the droplets generated with this method aligns well in an array without touch with each other, therefore the regular glass and oil could be used without any special surfactant. With simple analysis, the data generated with this method showed reliable quality, which followed the Poisson distribution trend. Compared with other expensive digital PCR methods, this system is more affordable and simpler to integrate, especially for those biological or medical labs which are in need for the digital PCR options but short in budget. Therefore, this method is believed to have the great potential in the future market application.