outlet: American Association for Respiratory Care blog 

A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine suggests that etomidate may be a better sedative for patients undergoing endotracheal intubation than ketamine.

The finding comes from investigators at Vanderbilt Health and elsewhere who conducted a randomized trial involving 2,365 patients in 14 U.S. emergency departments and ICUs. About half of the patients were intubated using ketamine, and the other half were intubated using etomidate.

The use of etomidate significantly decreased the risk of dangerously low blood pressures during the procedure when compared with ketamine without any impact on the risk of death.