# Use of etomidate in endotracheal intubations in the emergency room during the COVID-19 pandemic: a randomized clinical trial

## TL;DR

This study found no significant difference in mortality when using etomidate for intubation in emergency rooms during the pandemic compared to other drugs.

## Contribution

The study provides new evidence on the safety of etomidate in emergency intubations during the pandemic.

## Key findings

- Etomidate use for OTI did not increase in-hospital mortality within 30 days.
- No difference in mortality was observed between etomidate and non-etomidate groups within 72 hours.
- Results suggest etomidate is safe for emergency intubations in critical patients.

## Abstract

Shock, cardiovascular problems, and respiratory failure constitute the main causes of death in patients cared in medical emergency rooms. Patients commonly require orotracheal intubation (OTI), a fact that has been intensified by diseases that generate important and fatal hemodynamic and respiratory problems in the affected patient.

Although etomidate (ETO) is a highly used anesthetic for OTI, its use remains controversial in several scenarios. Some studies refer to an increase in mortality with its use in critically patients, while others do not refer to a difference. Therefore, we evaluated the mortality of patients submitted to OTI in the public hospital of a public federal university, with the use of ETO and other sedative-hypnotic drugs used in the induction of the performance of OTI, with the in-hospital mortality of patients cared in hospital.

The results demonstrate that the use of ETO as a hypnotic for OTI in the emergency room is not associated with a significant difference in morbidity or early mortality, within 30 days of hospitalization, compared with other hypnotics.

There was no difference in mortality between patients intubated in the emergency department who used ETO and those who used non-ETO hypnotic within 72 hours and 30 days.