Postintubation Sedation After a Formulary Change From Succinylcholine to Rocuronium in a Critical Care Transport...

Rocuronium is increasingly used as a first-line neuromuscular blocker (NMB) in rapid sequence intubation by transport teams. Prior work has shown that rocuronium is associated with a delay in postintubation sedation compared with intubation with succinylcholine.

Boston MedFlight is a consortium-based transport organization. In 2017, the intubation protocol and formulary for Boston MedFlight was changed to replace succinylcholine with rocuronium. We performed a retrospective review of patients intubated by the critical care transport teams from January 2017 through December 2019.

We analyzed data for 264 intubations, 92 with succinylcholine and 172 with rocuronium. Ketamine and etomidate were the most common induction agents. The mean time from NMB administration to the first dose of sedation was 9.2 minutes (95% confidence interval, 5.4-23.7) for the succinylcholine cohort and 14.8 minutes (95% confidence interval, 8.4-38.0; P < .001) for the rocuronium cohort. After neuromuscular blockade, the total hourly weight-adjusted fentanyl dose was significantly lower for patients intubated with rocuronium compared with succinylcholine.

Intubation with rocuronium was associated with a longer time until the administration of sedation and decreased postneuromuscular blockade fentanyl administration compared with intubation with succinylcholine. These findings suggest opportunities for improvement in sedation and analgesia practices after rocuronium rapid sequence intubation.