Pediatric Procedural Sedation and Analgesia (PROSA) in the Leuven University Hospitals: An Audit on Efficacy and Safety

Abstract

The hospital can be a stressful environment for a child. To address the increase in demands for pediatric procedural sedation, the PROSA team initiative was started in the Leuven University Hospitals in 2014. In this study, we assessed the efficacy and safety of this project since its initiation. Demographic (age, sex) and clinical (procedure, sedation method) data were prospectively registered by the dedicated PROSA team. Anonymized data (11/2014–6/2021) were extracted to a database for analysis. Data on 5090 procedures were available. The median age was 4.8 years. The sedation was successful in 98% of patients, be it classified as ‘technically difficult’ in 3.3%. Of the 2% of failed procedures, 69% were due to inadequate sedation and 31% to logistic reasons unrelated to sedation (such as puncture problem, suboptimal bowel preparation). The overall adverse event incidence was 2% and occurred predominantly during gastro-coloscopy or bronchoscopy. Pethidine/midazolam was used in 81 cases, nitrous oxide in 10 cases. A saturation decrease with oxygen supply was the documented adverse event in 83 cases. There were no deaths reported. With the current training and implementation, PROSA is effective with a success rate of 98% and an adverse event rate of 2%.

Keywords

• pediatrics
• procedural sedation and analgesia
• anesthesia
• non-pharmacological sedation