10. A Clinical Survey of Patients Who Received Intravenous Sedation

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for intravenous sedation during dental treatment. Since the opening of our department, we have also seen a dramatic increase in the number of cases involving intravenous sedation. To examine this more thoroughly, we studied patients who were treated under intravenous sedation in our department during the last two years. From March 2011 until May 2009, the age, gender, medical history, whether or not they were taking medication, treatment type, number of treatments, reason for sedation, anesthesia time, treatment time and type of medicine for sedation used were examined clinically for patients who underwent intravenous sedation. Of the 322 cases, most patients were in their 30s（86;26.7%）and were women（212;65.8%）rather than men（110;34.2%）. A total of 260 cases（80.7%）received intravenous sedation because of dental phobia. Other reasons for intravenous sedation included patients with a mental disorder（34 cases;10.6%）or cardiovascular disease（28 cases;8.7%）. Regarding treatment 186 cases involved tooth extraction（57.8%）, while 110 patients（34.2%）received general dental treatment. The average number of treatments was 2.6±3.2 times. Propofol sedation was used in combination with midazolam. Intravenous sedation is very effective in improving the patient's motivation and can help facilitate dental treatment. However, using intravenous sedation also prolongs the length of treatment, and some patients may become dependent on intravenous sedation when they don't really need it. So it is necessary to better understand more what dental phobia is and how to diagnose it.