key: cord-0991826-afv9a0b5
authors: Nisticò, Daniela; Saccari, Alessia; Comar, Manola; Conti, Rosaura; Penco, Arturo; Peri, Francesca; Conversano, Ester; Barbi, Egidio
title: The COVID‐19 era and pediatric procedural sedation: A consecutive case series with an emphasis on preparation, precautions, and risk reduction
date: 2020-10-26
journal: Paediatr Anaesth
DOI: 10.1111/pan.14035
sha: 2ea9ec0acfc289e5081552b6434b88cb28727188
doc_id: 991826
cord_uid: afv9a0b5

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged health care systems to balance high standards of care with patients' needs and health care workers' safety.1 Pediatric sedation poses multiple potential contagion risks: aerosol generating procedures such as bag-valve mask ventilation and oro-pharyngeal suctioning2 , close proximity of the sedationist to the patient's airway, the need for airway manipulation or insertion of airway devices and the risk of patient vomiting and coughing. Although COVID risk mitigation to providers is achieved for elective procedures that allow for pre-sedation COVID-19 testing, it is important to recognize that there are still false negatives, with sensitivity cited to be as low as 73.3%3 . For this reason, thoughtful consideration should be directed to means of lowering the healthcare providers' risk of COVID-19 exposure during pediatric procedural sedation.

Other procedures 24

Drugs used for sedation (%)

Intravenous ketamine 15

Intranasal dexmedetomidine 8

Patient' swabs (N.)

Negative

Procedural sedation in the COVID-19 era

Aerosol generating procedures (AGP) in acute care standard operating procedure

Systematic review with meta-analysis of the accuracy of diagnostic tests for COVID

All authors declare no conflict of interest.

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9717-567XEgidio Barbi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6343-846X