There’s been a lot of chatter in the twitterverse surrounding the recent release of the POKER Trial out of Australia comparing ketofol with propofol for procedural sedation. Their primary outcomes were looking at respiratory complications, including apnea, desaturation or hypoventilation; with secondary outcomes of hypotension and patient satisfaction. They report “ketofol and propofol resulted in a similar incidence of adverse respiratory events requiring intervention by the sedating physician.” While this is true based on their data, when you start breaking down the airway interventions, propofol did require more instances of the patient requiring assisted ventilation with a BVM. Call me crazy, but to me that seems a little more of an intervention than just turning up the oxygen flow on the nasal cannula. Propofol also had a greater rate (8%) of hypotension (SBP<90) when compared to ketofol (1%), and while there were no clinically significant outcomes related to this hypotension, I think it’s still important to note. It seems like a lot of shade is being thrown (definition here) at ketofol after this trial, but I haven’t closed the door on ketofol yet. I would still give ketofol a chance, I much prefer not having to bag my shoulder reductions as the propofol wears off and while a BP of 70/40 may not stroke them out in front of you, it still gets my heart rate up a bit.
Post by: Terrance McGovern DO, MPH (@drtmcg)