Benefits and harms of capnography during procedures involving moderate sedation: A rapid review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background: Patient safety is a priority in dentistry. Evaluating the benefits and harms associated with the addition of capnography to standard monitoring during moderate sedation for adult patients in the dental practice setting is needed.

Types of studies reviewed: The authors used rapid review methodology to identify relevant systematic reviews, which they updated through a systematic search by using the same search strategy as the identified reviews. The authors searched PubMed and Google Scholar and through the references of the identified systematic reviews, which yielded 2,892 studies. Inclusion criteria were that the article was available in English, was original research in adult humans who had undergone moderate procedural sedation, and involved comparing standard monitoring with the addition of capnography.

Results: Sixteen studies were eligible, involving 3,866 adults undergoing procedural sedation. The authors used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach to evaluate the evidence and rate it as being of moderate to low quality because of high risk of bias and heterogeneous effects for the outcomes of hypoxemia and adverse respiratory events. Capnography had higher sensitivity to detect adverse respiratory events than did standard monitoring alone (0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.65 to 0.99) and may reduce the risk of developing hypoxemia by 31% (risk ratio, 0.69; 95% confidence interval, 0.57 to 0.82). Capnography did not affect the risk of developing serious adverse events, procedure time, sedation quality, or patient satisfaction.

Conclusions and practical implications: Adding capnography to standard monitoring of adults during moderate sedation may reduce the risk of developing hypoxemia, increase detection of adverse respiratory events, and is not associated with additional harms. These findings suggest routine use of capnography during moderate sedation has the potential to reduce adverse anesthetic outcomes in dental practice.

Keywords: Capnography; hypoxemia; moderate sedation; procedural sedation; respiratory events; sedation quality.