Efficiency and Safety of a Procedural Sedation by Propofol on Terminally Ill Patients With Refractory Pain
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2018-09-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Relieving symptoms of patients hospitalized in a palliative care unit is a priority. Although
they receive appropriate care, they may still experience pain refractory to analgesia or/and
to conservative treatment during care procedures. For instance, pain can be caused by the
bandaging of carcinological or ischemic wounds, or by the mobilization of traumatic injuries
which cannot be specifically treated.
Although these types of situations are rare, they remain unacceptable, especially at the end
of life.
According to current recommendations, a short-term sedation treatment can be administered
although detailed procedures for this type of sedation have not been very much documented. In
reality, midalozam is often used in those cases but it has drawbacks, which is why the
investigators have looked into alternatives.
Propofol, which is already widely used in anesthesia and emergency medicine to manage painful
procedures, seems to be an interesting molecule because of its pharmacological properties. It
allows to quickly reach deep sedation and thus obtain a certain level of comfort for the
patient, but also ensures a prompt awakening as soon as care procedures are over, which
limits respiratory side effects.
The results from a preliminary study encouraged us to go further and to present a prospective
study conducted in multiple centers in order to evaluate the efficiency and safety of a
procedural sedation administered by trained doctors who are not anesthesiologists on
terminally ill patients with refractory pain hospitalized in a palliative care unit.