Complications of IV sedation for dental treatment in individuals with intellectual disability

Complications associated with intravenous midazolam and fentanyl sedation in patients undergoing minor oral surgery

Background

Anxiety control remains an important concern in dental practice. We evaluated the incidence, nature, and sequelae of complications during and after minor oral surgeries performed under intravenous midazolam and fentanyl sedation using the titration technique.

Methods

The medical records of patients who had undergone minor oral surgeries under moderate intravenous midazolam and fentanyl sedation at our institution between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015 were retrospectively evaluated. Age, sex, body mass index, medical history, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification, indications for sedation, amount of sedative used, surgical duration, and recovery time were evaluated for all patients.

Results

In total, 107 patients aged 9–84 years were included. ASA class I and class II were observed for 56.1% and 43.9% patients, respectively. Complications associated with sedation occurred in 11 (10.2%) patients. There were no serious adverse events. Oxygen saturation reached 95% during the procedure in six patients; this was successfully managed by stimulating the patients to take a deep breath. Two patients exhibited deep sedation and one exhibited paradoxical excitement. After the procedure, one patient experienced nausea without vomiting and one exhibited a prolonged recovery time. The surgical procedures were completed in all patients. Obesity was found to be significantly associated with sedation-related complications.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that complications associated with intravenous midazolam and fentanyl sedation using the titration technique for minor oral surgeries are mostly minor and can be successfully managed with no prolonged sequelae.

Paediatric procedural sedation using ketamine in a UK emergency department: a 7 year review of practice

BACKGROUND

Ketamine is growing in popularity for procedural sedation in the paediatric population, yet safety concerns remain. We performed a retrospective review of practice and outcomes of paediatric ketamine sedation using the World SIVA International Sedation Task Force reporting tool.

METHODS

A retrospective inspection of the dedicated emergency department electronic sedation database and subsequent note and sedation chart review was performed for all paediatric sedations throughout a 7 yr period from September 2006. All adverse events were stratified.

RESULTS

During the study period, procedural sedation was provided for a total of 243 children, of whom 215 were sedated with ketamine, most commonly for wound management (n=131). The median patient age was 4 yr (14 months to 15 yr), and 63.7% were male. Of the total, 76.7% were discharged home either directly (n=101) or after brief observation (n=64). One patient required subsequent general anaesthesia after a failed sedation with paradoxical agitation. Of the total, 9.8% of patients had an adverse event, the most severe risk stratification being 'minor risk'. All interventions were 'minimal risk'. There were no 'sentinel risk' outcomes.

CONCLUSIONS

These data support the ongoing use of ketamine for paediatric procedural sedation in the emergency department by emergency physicians. Relatively high resource requirements mean that ensuring adequate numbers of procedures may prove challenging.