Study: Less-painful propofol alternative non-inferior in general anesthesia induction

Editor's Note:

HSK3486 injectable emulsion (ciprofol) is noninferior to propofol in successful induction of general anesthesia, according toa study published December 13 in Anesthesiology. The study also confirmed prior data indicating HSK3486 causes substantially less injection-site pain.

The multicenter, randomized (2:1), double-blind, propofol-controlled, phase-4 study evaluated 255 adults undergoing elective surgery with endotracheal intubation.

Findings include:

• General anesthesia was successfully induced in 97.0% vs 97.6% of participants with HSK3486 and propofol, respectively. The difference in success rate was −0.57% (95% CI: −5.4%, 4.2%); the noninferiority boundary of −8% was not crossed. 
• Thirty participants (18.0%) had injection-site pain with HSK3486, versus 64 (77.1%) with propofol (p<.0001). 
• Eighty-one participants (48.2%) with HSK3486 vs 42 (50.6%) with propofol (p=.8780) were successfully induced while maintaining the desired anesthetic depth and without substantial cardiac and respiratory events.
• When injection-site pain was excluded, the incidence of treatment-emergent adverse events related to study drug was 17.9% for HSK3486 and 14.5% for propofol.