Monitoring of sedation depth in intensive care unit by therapeutic drug monitoring? A prospective observation study of medical intensive care patients.

Background: Analgosedation is a cornerstone therapy for mechanically ventilated patients in intensive care units (ICU). To avoid inadequate sedation and its complications, monitoring of analgosedation is of great importance. The aim of this study was to investigate whether monitoring of analgosedative drug concentrations (midazolam and sufentanil) might be beneficial to optimize analgosedation and whether drug serum concentrations correlate with the results of subjective (Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale [RASS]/Ramsay Sedation Scale) and objective (bispectral (BIS) index) monitoring procedures.