Propofol provides a prominent sedation effect in colonoscopy.

However, anesthesia and sedation induced with propofol in the elderly might result in cardiopulmonary complications, especially when it is combined with opoids in the regimen.

This study aimed to test the hypothesis that the addition of intravenous lidocaine to propofol-based sedation could decrease the overall propofol requirement in elderly patients during colonoscopy while the procedural sedation satisfaction and the hemodynamic stability were not compromised.

Ninety-two patients undergoing colonoscopy were randomly enrolled into lidocaine+propofol (L + P) group or normal saline+propofol (NS + P) groups.