Cannabis Users Require More Anesthetic Agents for General Anesthesia in Ambulatory Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Procedures

Abstract

The use of cannabis in the general population has steadily increased over recent years and there is limited literature regarding the anesthetic implications of chronic cannabis use, particularly in the setting of outpatient anesthesia. To determine whether chronic cannabis users undergoing deep sedation or general anesthesia during ambulatory procedures require more anesthetic agents than nonusers. A retrospective cohort study of subjects undergoing deep sedation or general anesthesia at the Oklahoma University Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic from January to December 2022 was performed. The inclusion criteria were duration of anesthetic procedure between 15 to 40minutes, use of propofol, fentanyl, ketamine, and midazolam, and extraction of at least 2 teeth. The exclusion criterion was patients undergoing adjunctive procedures other than extractions during sedation. Cannabis use status was grouped as users and nonusers. A user was defined as a subject who self-reported any regular use of cannabis. The primary outcome variable was the amount of intravenous anesthetic agents administered. Secondary outcome variables included the length of the procedure and the number of teeth extracted. Age, sex, and the senior-most resident involved in the sedation. IBM SPSS was utilized to perform descriptive statistics, paired t-tests, ANOVA, and multivariate linear regression. A level of significance of 5% (P<.05) was used for all analyses. Four hundred and ninety nine subjects were identified, 189 met the inclusion criteria, and 57 reported using cannabis. The mean age of nonusers was 28.2±7.8years and that of users was 26.6±6.4years (P=.09). Females represented 71.9% of nonusers and 72.7% of users. Cannabis users received significantly more propofol (117.5mg±71.3 vs 152.5mg±101.8; P=.004), midazolam (4.7mg±1.0 vs 5.1mg±1.5; P=.01), ketamine (40.2mg±15.7 vs 46.1mg±16.9; P=.01), and fentanyl (75.2μg±26.3 vs 88.6μg±32.8; P=.002) than nonusers, despite extracting a similar number of teeth (4.5±3.1 vs 4.4±3.5; P=.37) in a similar amount of time (25.5±7.3 vs 27.3±7.8; P=.06). Cannabis users required more propofol, midazolam, ketamine, and fentanyl than non-cannabis users during outpatient oral and maxillofacial surgery procedures.