The Effectiveness of Propofol on Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization and Electrophysiologic Study

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Our purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of propofol on pediatric cardiac catheterization or radiofrequency catheter ablation. METHODS: We measured the serial changes of arterial oxygen saturation, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure at 4 stages, a baseline(during normal sleep), stage 1(just after loading of propofol 2 mg/kg over 10 minutes), stage 2(10-15 minutes after propofol continuous intravenous infusion at 50 microg/kg/min), and stage 3(25-30 minutes after continuous infusion). RESULTS: Serial changes of arterial oxygen saturation were 96.4+/-7.7, 96.7+/-6.5, 97.0+/-5.2, and 96.5+/-6.1% respectively, with a significant but mild decrease between stage 2 and stage 3(P<0.05), and no significant decrease as compared with the baseline value. There were no significant changes of heart rate(102+/-22, 101+/-21, 100+/-19, 99+/-17 beats/min.), systolic blood pressure(103+/-12, 101+/-14, 103+/-17, 104+/-15 mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure(55+/-10, 52+/-9, 54+/-13, 52+/-9 mmHg). Mean time to complete recovery of consciousness was 19+/-20(+/-2SD) minutes. Oxygen supplementation was required in five cases, and oxygen saturation was sastained stable after administration of the oxygen at the rate of 2-4 L/min. CONCLUSION: During invasive pediatric cardiac procedure, intravenous propofol sedation had no significant impacts on heart rate and blood pressure but some impacts on arterial oxygen saturation which was easily corrected by oxygen administration. Propofol might be considered as a relatively safe and effective sedative drug in pediatric cardiac invasive procedures.