Precision Medicine in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine

Our research focuses on anesthesiologic pharmacology, more specifically on clinical drug trials and pharmacometric modelling of the clinical data. The cornerstones of our research are acute pain medicine and procedural sedation.

Currently, the primary fields of our research explore the possibility to reduce opioid use with adjuvants added to opioid therapy in postoperative setting. We aim to find out model informed dosing schemes for different patient populations using pharmacometric methods, and to establish covariate effects that can be used in the future to individualize drug therapy.

The ultimate goal of our research is to introduce precision medicine in anesthesia and analgesia to reduce the opioid use in acute pain medicine, and to discover biomarkers that can predict chronic pain development.

Recent publications:

Tiainen SM, Koskinen A, Mäkelä S, Laitio R, Löyttyniemi E, Mäkelä K, Pirttikangas CO, Saari TI, Uusalo P. Effects of intranasal dexmedetomidine premedication on hemodynamics, oxygenation and bleeding in patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty under spinal anesthesia – a secondary analysis of a prospective, double-blinded, randomized controlled trial (TKADEX). J Clin Anesth. 2025 Jul;105:111899. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinane.2025.111899. Epub 2025 Jun 11. PMID: 40499279.

Ashraf MW, Poikola S, Neuvonen M, Kiiski JI, Kontinen VK, Olkkola KT, Backman JT, Niemi M, Saari TI. Population Pharmacokinetic Quantification of CYP2D6 Activity in Codeine Metabolism in Ambulatory Surgical Patients for Model-Informed Precision Dosing. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2024 Nov;63(11):1547-1560. doi: 10.1007/s40262-024-01433-9. Epub 2024 Oct 23. PMID: 39441506.

Saari TI, Strang J, Dale O. Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Naloxone. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2024 Apr;63(4):397-422. doi: 10.1007/s40262-024-01355-6. Epub 2024 Mar 14. PMID: 38485851.