Combination of propofol and nasal sufentanil or intravenous midazolam for colonoscopy: a comparative study

Abstract

The intranasal (IN) route to deliver medications is preferable because this method has advantages over the other methods, such as intravenous (IV), intramuscular, and subcutaneous. The advantages include painless and needleless application, rapid drug absorption, avoidance of gastrointestinal destruction, and hepatic first-pass metabolism [1,2]. Previous studies have shown that the use of IN opiates is effective for mild to moderate sedation but not for deep sedation [3]. The most proper synthetic opiate medication for IN drug delivery is sufentanil because it has high lipid solubility, a short half-life (15 to 20 minutes), rapid onset of action causing rapid mucosal absorption, and large therapeutic index [4]. The administration of IN sufentanil provides preoperative sedation within 10 minutes, and it has been reported to cause less respiratory depression in comparison to fentanyl [5]. Intranasal administration of sufentanil induces no clinically significant change in