Unexpected cardiac arrest during anesthesia and surgery. An environmental study
G. Taylor, C. P. Larson Jr and R. Prestwich
Medical and legal records of 41 cases of cardiac arrest that occurred
during surgery were supplied by a professional liability insurance company
and a review was undertaken in an attempt to identify recurring or common
factors. The majority of patients in this study were healthy and required
relatively routine elective surgical procedures. Only three of the patients
survived the cardiac arrest and returned to normal activities. The
remaining patients either died in the hospital or had a major central
nervous system deficit. Hypoxia from hypoventilation and low levels of
inspired oxygen appeared to be the chief cause of cardiac arrest in this
study. Because of the unknown frequency of cardiac arrest during surgery,
we recommend the establishment of a national registry of cardiac arrest
cases that occur in surgical patients, in order to monitor incidence,
causes, and outcome. Only in this way will it be possible to lessen the
frequency of this disastrous event.
