Sedation of children for CT and MRI scanning.

This paper reports on 350 pediatric patients who were studied over a 17-month period to determine the efficacy and safety of oral and intramuscular sedation techniques. The protocol using oral chloral hydrate, 50 mgm/kg, for infants under 1 year of age or intramuscular pentobarbital, 5 mgm/kg, for children over 1 year was found to be an effective, safe and fairly simple approach to pediatric sedation. Of the 350 sedated patients, 343 (98 percent) had satisfactory scans on the same day the examination was scheduled after a single dose or an initial dose and supplementary sedation.