Evidence Hub

Comparison of remimazolam versus propofol under deep sedation for elderly patients during prostate biopsy: a protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Fukano K, Fukuda Y, Chiba Y, Kondo S, Sawada I, Miyazawa K, Otsuka Y, Iizuka Y et al.

BMJ open, 2026

Abstract

Introduction: With the rapid increase in the ageing population, the use of procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) for diagnostic procedures such as prostate biopsy in older adults is increasing. However, elderly patients are particularly susceptible to respiratory depression during PSA testing and have a significantly higher risk of hypoxaemia during procedures requiring deep sedation. Although propofol combined with fentanyl is commonly used, it frequently causes hypoxaemia and apnoea. Remimazolam, a novel ultrashort-acting benzodiazepine, may be a safer alternative with less respiratory compromise; however, the supporting evidence remains limited. This study aims to assess whether remimazolam combined with fentanyl reduces the incidence of respiratory depression compared with propofol combined with fentanyl in elderly patients undergoing prostate biopsy under deep sedation requiring immobility.

Methods and analysis: This is a single-centre, participant and assessor-blinded (with pragmatic blinding of participants), parallel-group, superiority randomised controlled trial conducted at the Jichi Medical University Saitama Medical Centre, Japan. Eligible participants are men aged ≥70 years who are scheduled to undergo prostate biopsy under intravenous sedation. Participants will be randomised in a 1:1 ratio to receive either remimazolam or propofol, each administered in combination with fentanyl at a fixed effect-site concentration. The primary outcome is the incidence of…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free