Intranasal Agents in the emergency care: A systematic review

Nowadays, the use of minimally invasive procedures in emergency care is more favorable. Medication via intranasal is interesting, due to easy administration even in the critical conditions, rapid-onset absorption and good tolerability by patients.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of using IN Agents for prescribing drugs in emergency setting.

This study was a systematic review with the key words such as Intranasal، Nasal، pre-hospital، prehospital، Emergency Care، Emergency medical services، First Responder، Out-of-Hospital and Emergency Medical Technician which was used library Studies search the databases such as PubMed, OVID, Scopus, Magiran and SID. All searches were done in 2005-2015.

134 articles were included in the primary analysis. Twelve studies met inclusion criteria and research aims. The findings of this study suggest that this route is effective for drugs administration such as fentanyl, ketamine, naloxone and midazolam in hospital and prehospital care setting. The comparison between intranasal and other drug administration routes was shown this route has been more effective and safe than others. Also intranasal agents are available and easy to use especially in cases where the catheter insertion is impossible or difficult.

Therefore, regarding the safe use of intranasal route especially in prehospital care, it is recommended that similar studies be designed and conducted on the implementation of this route in prehospital setting in Iran.