According to the latest study published in BMC anesthesisology sleep quality of patients who underwent diagnostic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy might be affected by Propofol and Sufentanil, independent of the surgical stress response.

A diagnostic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (UGE) is a minimally invasive procedure in which flexible endoscope is used to examine the upper GI tract with or without a sedative. It is not likely to cause tissue trauma and pain. About narcotics, it is not clear whether they contribute to the postoperative sleep disturbance.

Therefore, a study was conducted with an objective to evaluate whether the postoperative sleep quality of patient is independently affected by sedative without the added effects of surgical stress response and postoperative pain undergoing routine (without painkiller) diagnostic UGE or UGE with a sedative, before, one week, and one month after the procedure.

This was a non-randomized controlled trial involving 1033 patients undergoing UGE. The participants were divided into two groups - sedative group (510) or routine group (523) without sedatives. Patients in the sedative group were administered with Propofol and Sufentanil, which was not allowed in the regular group. After this procedure, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was measured before, one week and after one month.

The observed estimations, one week after the procedure found that patients in the sedative group showed significantly higher PSQI scores (worse sleep quality) than the baseline PSQI scores (p< 0.001). But in the same period, no significant change was observed for the regular group (p=0.096).

One month after the procedure, no specific difference was observed in PSQI scores between the two groups compared with the baseline values (p=0.358 for the sedative group, p=0.161 for the regular group). Even there was no significant difference in the PSQI scores between the two teams in the entire month follow-up period (p=0.885).

The results determined the impaired sleep quality in case of a sedative group, one week after diagnostic UGE. Thus, it can be concluded that Propofol and Sufentanil might independently affect the sleep quality of patients after sedative diagnostic UGE for one week.