[Survey of cardiac arrests during and following anesthesia and surgery for the past seven years].
Cardiac arrests, excluding those associated with cardiac surgery, occurred in eleven out of 13,278 patients who had general anesthesia in our hospital for seven years from 1983 to 1989. Four of them were successfully resuscitated, while the remaining seven patients were lost. The causes of these cardiac arrests were as follows: massive bleeding in four; cardiac compression by surgeons in two; possible coronary artery spasm in one; hyperpotassemia in one; severe metabolic acidosis in one; myocardial ischemia in one; and unknown cardiogenic origin in one. There is no case in which anesthesia was the primary cause of cardiac arrest. Although we can not be absolutely free from cardiac arrest during anesthesia and surgery, we should do our best to detect and correct any factors leading to perioperative cardiac arrests.
Murakawa
T
T
Department of Anesthesiology, University of Hirosaki School of Medicine.
Matsuki
A
A
D000768:Anesthesia, General / Q000009:adverse effects*; D006323:Heart Arrest / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000009:adverse effects*