TY  - JOUR
T1  - ANesthesia care for low-risk patients undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopies
AU  - Perel A
Y1  - 2012/06/27
N1  - 10.1001/jama.2012.6537
JO  - JAMA
SP  - 2585
EP  - 2587
VL  - 307
IS  - 24
N2  - 
To the Editor: Authors from the RAND Corporation recently reported that utilization of anesthesia services during gastroenterology procedures increased substantially and that much of the associated expenditure can be considered potentially discretionary because sedation of low-risk patients by nonanesthesiologists is safe.1 The authors partly attribute this seemingly unjustified growth of anesthesia services to the adoption of propofol.1 Due to its short-acting properties, propofol has become a popular drug for procedural sedation. However, propofol administration may be associated with serious adverse effects, which include hypotension, bradycardia, airway obstruction, hypoventilation, hypoxemia, and apnea. In addition, propofol has a narrow therapeutic range, which may lead to an unintentional slip into a state of general anesthesia, especially in elderly patients. When such adverse effects occur, they require active respiratory and cardiovascular rescue measures because there are no specific antagonists that reverse the action of propofol. Because of these well-known risks, the manufacturers of the drug restricted its use to persons trained in the administration of general anesthesia only.

SN  - 0098-7484
M3  - doi: 10.1001/jama.2012.6537
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.6537
ER  -