• Elan L Guterman, Karl A Sporer, Thomas B Newman, Remle P Crowe, Daniel H Lowenstein, S Andrew Josephson, John P Betjemann, and James F Burke.
• Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA; Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, CA; Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, CA. Electronic address: Elan.Guterman@ucsf.edu.
• Ann Emerg Med. 2022 Oct 1; 80 (4): 319328319-328.

Study ObjectiveGuidelines recommend 10-mg intramuscular midazolam as the first-line treatment option for status epilepticus. However, in real-world practice, it is frequently administered intranasally or intravenously and is dosed lower. Therefore, we used conventional and instrumental variable approaches to examine the effectiveness of midazolam in a national out-of-hospital cohort.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study of adults with status epilepticus used the ESO Data Collaborative research dataset (January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2019). The exposures were the route and dose of midazolam. We performed hierarchical logistic regression and 2-stage least squares regression using agency treatment patterns as an instrument to examine our outcomes, rescue therapy, and ventilatory support.ResultsThere were 7,634 out-of-hospital encounters from 657 EMS agencies. Midazolam was administered intranasally in 20%, intravenously in 46%, and intramuscularly in 35% of the encounters. Compared with intramuscular administration, intranasal midazolam increased (risk difference [RD], 6.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.4% to 10.5%) and intravenous midazolam decreased (RD, -11.1%; 95% CI, -14.7% to -7.5%) the risk of rescue therapy. The differences in ventilatory support were not statistically significant (intranasal RD, -1.5%; 95% CI, -3.2% to 0.3%; intravenous RD, -0.3%; 95% CI, -1.9% to 1.2%). Higher doses were associated with a lower risk of rescue therapy (RD, -2.6%; 95% CI, -3.3% to -1.9%) and increased ventilatory support (RD, 0.4%; 95% CI, 0.1% to 0.7%). The instrumental variable analysis yielded similar results, except that dose was not associated with ventilatory support.ConclusionThe route and dose of midazolam affect clinical outcomes. Compared with intramuscular administration, intranasal administration may be less effective and intravenous administration more effective in terminating status epilepticus, although the differences between these and previous results may reflect the nature of real-world data as opposed to randomized data.Copyright © 2022 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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