Document Detail


Decreasing frequency of anesthetic cardiac arrests.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  1931057     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the anesthetic cardiac arrest rate decreased following the introduction of enhanced respiratory monitoring and increased safety awareness during the past decade. DESIGN: Epidemiologic study of surgical anesthetic morbidity as represented by intraoperative cardiac arrests. SETTING: Operating room suite of a large university hospital. PATIENTS: 241,934 patients undergoing surgery over a period of 20 years. Interventions: Anesthetic cardiac arrest rates from two decades were compared. The first decade (1969 to 1978) predated safety initiatives, while the second (1979 to 1988) included them. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Anesthetic cardiac arrests were identified, and their causes (respiratory vs nonrespiratory) and preventability (identifiable error) were determined shortly after their occurrence, as part of an ongoing study initiated in 1969. They provided numerators for rate calculations; total surgical anesthetics provided the denominators. The anesthetic cardiac arrest rate decreased by one-half from the first decade (2.1 arrests/10,000 anesthetics) to the second (1.0/10,000), a significant difference (p = 0.032, Fisher's Exact Test). The rate for preventable arrests due to respiratory causes declined significantly from 0.8/10,000 to 0.1/10,000 (p = 0.013) and accounted for most of the observed decrease in the overall anesthetic cardiac arrest rate. The rates for preventable nonrespiratory arrests and nonpreventable arrests did not change significantly. CONCLUSIONS: The results support the hypothesis that improved respiratory monitoring was effective in decreasing anesthetic morbidity.
Authors:
R L Keenan; C P Boyan
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Journal of clinical anesthesia     Volume:  3     ISSN:  0952-8180     ISO Abbreviation:  J Clin Anesth     Publication Date:    1991 Sep-Oct
Date Detail:
Created Date:  1991-12-20     Completed Date:  1991-12-20     Revised Date:  2004-11-17    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  8812166     Medline TA:  J Clin Anesth     Country:  UNITED STATES    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  354-7     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Anesthesiology, Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond 23298.
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Anesthesia / adverse effects*
Heart Arrest / epidemiology,  etiology*
Humans
Resuscitation / statistics & numerical data
Retrospective Studies
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
J Clin Anesth. 1991 Sep-Oct;3(5):351-3   [PMID:  1931056 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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