ABSTRACT
The incidence of cardiac arrhythmias during anesthesia in a total 5,845 surgical patients who were admitted to Hanyang university hospital from Janury 1 to December 31, 1988 was investigated using on-line continuous EKG monitoring. The results were as follows: 1) Among study patients, 111 patients (1.9%) had pre-existing cardiac arrhythmias before anesthesia and showed significantly higher incidence of arrhythmias (49.5%) than that of patients without pre-existisng arrhythmias before anesthesia (2.9%). 2) Among arrhythmias found during anesthesia, most types of arrhythmias were ventricular premature contractions (77.4% in the patients with pre-existing cardiac arrhythmias and 43.6% in the patients without pre-existing cardiac arrhythmias) except sinus bradycardia and tachycardia. 3) Although the incidence of arrhythmias during the induction of anesthesia was similar to that during anesthesia maintenance, it was somewhat greater on the basis of incidence per unit time. 4) The incidence of arrhythmias was increased with age. 5) The incidence of arrhythmias when anesthesia was induced with halothane (3.7%) was greater than that when anesthesia was induced with enflurane (2.1%). 6) Most of the arrhythmias were controlled with sufficient ventilation and oxygen supply, adjusting concentration of inhaled anesthetics or changing anesthetics, and occasionally, intravenous admininstration of 1% lidocaine (1.0-1.5 mg/kg). Considering the above results, it may be an appropriate conclusion that the continuous on-line EKG monitoring during the induction and maintenance of anesthesia is a noninvasive and simple method for detecting early signs of cardiac arrhythmias and hemodynamic changes during anesthesia, and consequently, improving the overall efficiency of patient care. Therefore, we are impressed with an idea that the continuous EKG monitoring should be mandatory for all surgical patients to be anesthetized.