Dear Editor in Chief,
Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) is a common diagnostic procedure which requires sedation for most patients (1,2). Propofol is an agent often used alone or in combination in endoscopic procedures such as EGD and/or colonoscopy. The median effective dose (ED50) of propofol for loss of consciousness is 1 to 1.5 mg/kg after a bolus. The duration of hypnosis is dose dependent and 5 to 10 minutes after 2-2.5 mg/kg (3).
I read the article entitled "The correlation of pain catastrophizing scale and sedation in patients undergoing gastroscopy’’ belonging to Duman Aydın et al. in Bagcilar Medical Bulletin 2021;6(1):1-6. In the section of ‘‘material and methods’’ in this study, it was stated that intravenous propofol was administered to patients during EGD at a dose of 1 mg/kg, and doses of 0.3-0.5 mg/kg were added to patients with pain or movement during the procedure. In the results section, the amount of propofol used for sedation was 80.3±16.2 mL, both in the text and in the table. Detailed information about propofol dilution is not provided in the article. 1% propofol contains 10 mg/mL of active substance. When used in a pure state, the amount of 80.3±16.2 mL indicates that 803±162 mg is used, which will correspond to a very high amount for short-term (average of 5.53±2.15 minutes in the study) operations. In my opinion, it would be more appropriate to specify the amount of propofol used in sedation in mg instead of mL in the article.
Ethics
Peer-review: Internally peer-reviewed.
Financial Disclosure: The author declared that this study received no financial support.