• Sarang S Koushik, Ruben H Schwartz, Denis Cherkalin, Vignesh Sankar, Naum Shaparin, and Omar Viswanath.
• Department of Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC, 1520 San Pablo Street #3450, Los Angeles, CA, 90033, USA. Sarang.koushik@gmail.com.
• Curr Pain Headache Rep. 2022 Feb 1; 26 (2): 145-149.

Purpose Of ReviewSedation for pain medicine procedures provides a unique challenge for proceduralists. Many patients dealing with pain are on chronic opioids and require higher doses of sedation for adequate procedural comfort. Chronic pain patients have various comorbidities including depression, neuropsychiatric disorders, peripheral vascular disease, and renal impairment, among others [1]. These confounding variables make the overall treatment of their pain condition much more challenging.Recent FindingsFor patients requiring intravenous (IV) sedation for their pain procedures, the constant need for access may render them a "difficult stick" over time. Another factor to consider is the increasing requirements by the hospital system needing IV sedatives and analgesics in the intensive care unit and operating rooms during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Sublingual sufentanil (SST) provides an excellent analgesic option for patients undergoing interventional pain procedures. The use of SST allows hospitals to preserve IV agents for more critical areas and mitigates the difficulty of obtaining IV access in patients.© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

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