2 Responses to “Sedating HIV-Infected Endoscopy Patients”
M. Brian Fennerty, MD
Founding Editor
NEJM Journal Watch Gastroenterology
Learn more about Gut Check on Gastroenterology.
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Brian, thanks for getting this issue out there to your GI colleagues. We have a meeting with the group in charge of policy on “conscious sedation,” and this specific question will be discussed — hope to get it resolved.
Just for the record, our HIV patients now have a projected life expectancy estimated to be decades — cancer screening recommendations that apply to HIV negative patients apply equally to them. Furthermore, the vast majority of HIV patients on antiviral therapy are receiving either efavirenz or ritonavir, so this issue of sedation for colonoscopies is a highly relevant question.
Propofol