Major incidents and complications in otherwise healthy patients undergoing elective procedures: results based on 1.37 million anaesthetic procedures.
Br J Anaesth 2014;
113:109-21. [PMID:
24801456 DOI:
10.1093/bja/aeu094]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 64] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Improved anaesthesia safety has made severe anaesthesia-related incidents, complications, and deaths rare events, but concern about morbidity and mortality in anaesthesia continues. This study examines possible severe adverse outcomes or death recorded in a large national surveillance system based on a core data set (CDS).
METHODS
Cases from 1999 to 2010 were filtered from the CDS database. Cases were defined as elective patients classified as ASA physical status grades I and II (without relevant risk factors) resulting in death or serious complication. Four experts reviewed the cases to determine anaesthetic involvement.
RESULTS
Of 1 374 678 otherwise healthy, ASA I and II patients in the CDS database, 36 met the study inclusion criteria resulting in a death or serious complication rate of 26.2 per million [95% confidence interval (CI), 19.4-34.6] procedures, and for those with possible direct anaesthetic involvement, 7.3 per million cases (95% CI, 3.9-12.3).
CONCLUSIONS
This is the first study assessing severe incidents and complications from a national outcome-tracking database. Annual identification and review of cases, perhaps with standardized database queries in the respective departments, might provide more detailed information about the cascades that lead to unfortunate outcomes.
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