[Annual mortality and morbidity in operating rooms during 2002 and summary of morbidity and mortality between 1999 and 2002 in Japan: a brief review]

Abstract

The Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists (JSA) conducts an annual survey of life-threatening events in operating rooms (OR) in JSA Certified Training Hospitals (JSACTH) by sending and collecting confidential questionnaires. Etiologies of the incidents were divided into four categories: those totally attributable to anesthetic management (AM), those resulting from preoperative complications (PC), those resulting from intraoperative pathological events (IP) and those related to surgical procedures (SP). IP resulted from coronary ischemia not suspected preoperatively, arrhythmias, pulmonary embolism, and other conditions. Outcomes were judged on the 7th post-operative day. In the year 2002, questionnaires were sent to 844 JSACTHs, and a total of 1,461,020 cases of anesthesia were documented from 773 JSACTHs. Of these, 1,277,045 cases of anesthesia from 712 JSACTHs were available for analysis. Seven hundred thirty nine cardiac arrests (5.79 per 10,000 anesthetics) and 806 deaths (6.31 per 10,000 anesthetics) due to life-threatening events in the OR were reported. The incidence of cardiac arrest and mortality totally attributable to AM was 0.38 and 0.11 per 10,000 anesthetics. These values tended to decrease after 1994, except the mortality totally attributable to AM, which were almost at constant level during recent years. The summary of the study between 1999 and 2002 was as follows. Among 3,855,384 anesthetics, 2,443 cardiac arrests (6.34 per 10,000 anesthetics) and 2,638 deaths (6.85 per 10,000 anesthetics) due to life-threatening events in the OR were reported. PC, SP, IP and AM were responsible for 64.7, 23.9, 9.4, and 1.5% of deaths, respectively. The major cause of PC related deaths was preoperative hemorrhagic shock, followed by cardiovascular diseases such as myocardial ischemia and congestive heart failure. Excessive surgical bleeding comprised 70.2% of SP-related deaths. The major causes of IP-related death were myocardial ischemia, pulmonary embolism, and severe arrhythmias. The incidence of cardiac arrest and death totally attributable to AM was 0.47 and 0.10/10,000 anesthetics, respectively. Among patients with ASA-PS 1(E) and 2(E), AM-related deaths occurred at a rate of 0.04/10,000 anesthetics. Half of AM-induced deaths were caused by airway or ventilatory problems. Other causes of AM-related death were medication accidents and infusion/transfusion accidents. Considerable effort is required to reduce intraoperative life-threatening events caused by human error, hemorrhage, and cardiovascular diseases.