A comparative study of intravenous diazepam and midazolam for oral surgery.

Intravenous diazepam was compared with intravenous midazolam for conscious sedation in a single-blind study of 50 Hong Kong Chinese patients acting as their own controls. Verrill's sign was used as the end-point of sedation, and bilateral, similarly impacted lower third molars served as the surgical model. The drugs produced comparable levels of sedation, stable vital signs, and good operating conditions in all patients. Midazolam had numerous advantages over diazepam: more rapid onset of sedation, less pain during injection, profound anterograde amnesia, and fewer postoperative complications. The incidence of thrombophlebitis was low with both drugs and appears to be so in Chinese in general. A significant majority of the patients preferred sedation to other techniques and midazolam to diazepam.