Anesthesia Progress – The stress that oral surgery patients experience during a procedure can cause elevated heart rates and blood pressure during operations. To avoid these side effects, surgeons often request sedation or general anesthesia for their patients. However, finding the right dose of anesthetic can be its own challenge, especially when the dosage needed for each patient can vary greatly.
An article published in the current issue of the journal Anesthesia Progress found that male patients required a lower dosage of a sedative than female patients during oral surgery. This finding is consistent with general anesthesia knowledge, which suggests that females emerge from sedation earlier than males. The researchers were able to establish this finding by using an objective assessment tool known as the bispectral index (or BIS), which allowed them to evaluate sedation levels by a special form of brain wave monitoring beyond merely monitoring the patient’s breathing and reactions during surgery.
Full text of the article “Female Patients Require a Higher Propofol Infusion Rate for Sedation,” Anesthesia Progress, Vol. 63, No. 2, 2016, is now available at http://www.anesthesiaprogress.org/doi/full/10.2344/0003-3006-63.2.67.
About Anesthesia Progress
Anesthesia Progress is the official publication of the American Dental Society of Anesthesiology (ADSA). The quarterly journal is dedicated to providing a better understanding of the advances being made in the science of pain and anxiety control in dentistry. The journal invites submissions of review articles, reports on clinical techniques, case reports, and conference summaries. To learn more about the ADSA, visit: http://www.adsahome.org/.
