[Is it necessary to administer tranquilizers as pre-endoscopic medication?].

A prospective randomized study of 204 consecutive upper gastrointestinal endoscopies performed with a flexible esophago gastroduodenoscope was made to determine the efficacy of diazepam as compared to the lack of sedation as pre-medication. The mental attitude of the ambulatory patients was assessed prior to the endoscopy. It was found that calm patients were satisfactorily endoscoped with or without sedation. The anxious patient had an unsatisfactory endoscopy more frequently when no sedative was used. Those patients with complication conditions (hypovolemia, liver failure, anemia, cardiac failure, etc.) were adequately studied with or without sedation. Age or sex of patients did not affect results in either group. Results show that a majority of patients can be satisfactorily endoscoped without sedation.