Safety of Outpatient Procedural Sedation Administered by Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons: The Mayo Clinic Experience in 17,634 Sedations (2004 to 2019)

The safety of the team anesthesia model routinely used by the specialty of oral and maxillofacial surgery has recently been called into question. The purpose of this article is to measure the frequency of adverse anesthetic events related to ambulatory surgical procedures performed under intravenous (IV) sedation by the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Mayo Clinic during a 15-year period using the team anesthesia model. A retrospective cohort study was designed, and a sample of subjects identified undergoing IV sedation at Mayo Clinic from 2004 to 2019. The primary outcome variable of interest was the presence of anesthetic-related adverse events (AEs) consistent with the World Society of Intravenous Anesthesia International Sedation Task Force's intervention-based definitions of adverse anesthetic events. Additional covariates included patient age, gender, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score, type of surgical procedure performed, and the type/dosage of medications administered periprocedurally. Univariate logistic regression analysis was used to assess for associations between AEs and covariates. The study identified 17,634 sedations administered to 16,609 unique subjects. In 17,634 sedations, 16 (0.1%) AEs and no subject deaths (0%) were identified. There were no statistically significant associations between AEs and age (hazard ratio [HR], 0.4; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.2 to 1.3; P = .13); gender (HR, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.3 to 2.5; P = .87); ASA 2 classification (HR, 1.6; 95% CI, 0.6 to 4.5; P = .33); ASA 3 classification (HR, 1.3; 95% CI, 0.1 to 22.0; P = .86), or types of IV sedation medications administered during the procedure: fentanyl (HR, 0.4; 95% CI, 0.02 to 6.3; P = .5); midazolam (HR, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.2 to 4.3; P = .98); propofol (HR, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.3 to 3.5; P = .99); or ketamine (HR, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.1 to 7.3; P = .97). The frequency of AEs (0.1%) and 0% mortality rate reported in this study demonstrate that the anesthesia team model used by oral and maxillofacial surgeons compares favorably to standardized intervention-based adverse anesthetic event outcomes reported by other nonanesthesiology specialties routinely performing outpatient procedural sedation.