Outpatient sedation for oral surgery: a comparison of butorphanol and fentanyl.

Third molar surgery in the oral and maxillofacial surgery office has been a predictable model for evaluating the efficacy of sedatives and analgesics. In this setting, butorphanol plus diazepam and fentanyl plus diazepam were compared for surgical effectiveness and postoperative recovery. The comparison of butorphanol to a known sedative combination was clinically very satisfactory. It appears from this data that butorphanol has a pharmacologic place in outpatient conscious sedation.