It is time for patients to undergo bronchoscopy without discomfort.

T hirty years ago, when I started performing bronchoscopy, sedation for flexible bronchoscopy was not a very common practice. At that time, some authors suggested that routine sedation could do little for patients undergoing the procedure and that bronchoscopy could be carried out without pre-medication [1–3]. However, over the last few decades, several things have changed. Patients’ need for comfort, and the desire to avoid anxiety and distress in patients undergoing medical procedures has increased generally. Furthermore, the advent and routine use of new bronchoscopic techniques and technologies have made diagnostic bronchoscopy a more complex procedure that requires prolonged time, the absence of cough, and patient cooperation and comfort. In this new scenario, the problem of sedation during bronchoscopy requires careful re-evaluation in order to definitively assess its indication and also to define the best sedative drugs to be used.