9. Trends in Using Sedation during Dental Treatment at Showa University Dental Hospital

Intravenous sedation is conducted for patients who find usual dental treatment is difficult due to dental phobia or panic disorder, patients who are medically compromised patients who undergo minor oral surgery for a long time, and so on at Showa University Dental Hospital. We retrospectively analyzed all of the patients who received intravenous sedation and the number of cases, the requested number of each department, the request reason from January 2004 to April 2008. The total number of intravenous sedations increased every year; 234 cases in 2004, 265 cases in 2005, 317 cases in 2006, 357 cases in 2007, 174 cases in 2008 (January to April). The biggest number of requests was for oral surgery every year, followed by conservative dentistry, prosthodontics, and implant dentistry, respectively. The number of implants and clinic for persons with disorders has increased in recent years. The most common request reasons are dental phobia, depression and panic disorder, which totaled 30-40% of the whole. Also, medically compromised patient requests were received as well. It was shown that the number of requests from patients with dental phobia tend to increase the most over the 4 yr, even though in 2004 the number of medically compromis-ed patients increased. Almost all cases were sedated using midazolam and propofol. In conclusion, we found an increase in the number of medically compromised patients caused by the aging society, as well as patients with dental phobia, depression and panic disorder. Moreover, it is thought that the demand for anesthetizing management by intravenous sedation has risen since introducing implant dentistry and the clinic for persons with disorders.