TY - JOUR T1 - Midazolam is more likely to cause hypotension than etomidate in emergency department rapid sequence intubation JF - Emergency Medicine Journal JO - Emerg Med J SP - 700 LP - 702 DO - 10.1136/emj.2002.004143 VL - 21 IS - 6 AU - Y F Choi AU - T W Wong AU - C C Lau Y1 - 2004/11/01 UR - http://emj.bmj.com/content/21/6/700.abstract N2 - Objective: To compare the haemodynamic effect of low dose midazolam and etomidate as induction agent in emergency department rapid sequence intubation. Methods: A prospective observational study in two phases. In phase one, midazolam 2–4 mg was used as induction agent and in phase two, etomidate 0.2–0.3 mg/kg was used. The haemodynamic data were recorded before and after intubation for comparison. Changes in mean systolic blood pressure were analysed with SPSS software. Results: A 10% decrease in mean systolic blood pressure was observed in the midazolam group (p = 0.001) while there was no significant change in the etomidate group. Some 19.5% of patients had hypotension after being given midazolam while only 3.6% with etomidate (p = 0.002). Patients older than 70 tended to have more hypotension episodes but the difference was not statistically significant. Conclusions: Midazolam, even in low dose, was more likely than etomidate to cause significant hypotension when used as an induction agent for rapid sequence intubation. Etomidate is a better alternative. ER -