[Respiratory outcome in extremely premature infants following general anesthesia]

Abstract

This study was aimed to predict the need of postoperative tracheal intubation in premature infants following anesthesia using volatile anesthetics by means of the scoring system derived from our former study of ketamine anesthesia. The subjects consisted of 14 infants (birth weight: 719 +/- 130 g and weight at operation 1882 +/- 312 g) needing cryotherapy for retinopathy and anesthetized with less than 1 MAC of volatile anesthetics. Respiratory outcome was successfully predicted in 9 patients (64%) while no infant was predicted incorrectly to be ready for tracheal extubation. The incidences of postoperative ventilatory support were 28% and 32% after anesthesia with volatile anesthetics and ketamine anesthesia, respectively. However, general anesthesia with volatile anesthetics appeared to be superior in actual outcome to ketamine anesthesia among the patients with high risk scores.