Objective To investigate the effect of dexmedetomidine on median effective target effect-site concentration ( EC50) of sufentanil inhibiting body movement evoked by skin incision in patients undergoing bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy. Methods Thirty-nine ASA I or II patients of both sexes aged 20-64 yr with a body mass index of 20-25 kg/m2 undergoing bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy were randomly divided into 2 groups: control group (group C) and dexmedetomidine group (group D). The patients were premedicated with intramuscular phenobarbital 0.1 g and scopolamine 0.3 mg. In group D dexmedetomidine 0.6 μg/kg was injected iv over 10 min at S min before induction of anesthesia. Anesthesia was induced with target-controlled infusion (TCI) of propofol and sufentanil. The target plasma concentration of propofol was set at 3.0 μg/ml which was maintained until the end of operation. TCI of sufentanil was started at 10 min after initiation of propofol TCI. The initial target effect-site concentration was set at 0.20 ng/ml and decreased/increased by 20% in the next patient according to whether the patient's body moved or not within 1 min after skin incision. Laryngeal mask airway was inserted at 3 min after initiation of sufentanil TCI. Spontaneous breathing was maintained. Skin incision was made at 10 min after initiation of sufentanil TCI. The EC50 and 95% confidence interval (CI) of sufentanil inhibiting skin incision-evoked body movement were calculated with sequential method. Results EC50, of sufentanil was 0.1148 ng/ml (95% CI 0.1055-0.1249 ng/ml) in group D and 0.1454 ng/ml (95% CI 0.1339-0.1580 ng/ml) in group C, and was significantly lower in group D than in group C. Conclusion Dexmedetomidine 0.6 μg/kg infused iv before operation can reduce the EC50 of sufentanil inhibiting body movement evoked by skin incision in patients undergoing bilateral subtotal thyroidectomy.