Safety and effectiveness of Chloral Hydrate in Auditory Brainstem
Response tests: a single-center and cross-sectional study
Abstract
Objective: Chloral Hydrate is the most commonly used sedative for
Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) test. The aim of this study was to
retrospectively analyze the safety and effectiveness of Chloral Hydrate
in patients undergoing ABR tests through a single-center and large
sample size cross-sectional study. Methods: Data were collected from
December 2015 to March 2022, which included 7,176 ABR tests (6,106
patients). Basic information was collected, then telephone follow-up was
conducted for patients with two or more consecutive tests less than 60
days, and administration method, failure performance, and adverse events
were collected. Total sedation failure rate, sedation failure rates in
different age groups (≤0.5 years, 0.5-3 years, 3-12 years, ≥12 years)
and incidence of adverse events were calculated. Results: A total of
4,967(69.21%) ABR tests were younger than 3 years of age. The sedation
failure rate was 3.11% with a Chloral Hydrate dose of 30 mg/kg of
weight, which ranged from 1.44% to 4.31% in different age groups. In
the sedation failure tests, insufficient sedation was found in 74.44%
of the tests. The incidence of adverse events was 0.35%, with most
commonly vomiting. Conclusion: The sedation failure rate and the
incidence of adverse events in this study are relatively low compared
with other previous studies, and Chloral Hydrate can be considered a
safe and effective sedative with the permissible dose. However, there
were still many patients who failed to complete the test due to
insufficient sedation (mostly infants and children), which imply that
alternative sedatives with easier preparation process are needed.