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Causes of Oxygenation Impairment During Anesthesia

  • Conference paper
Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2000

Part of the book series: Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine ((YEARBOOK,volume 2000))

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Abstract

Mild to moderate hypoxemia (arterial oxygen saturation of between 85–90%) occurs in about half of all patients undergoing anesthesia and elective surgery, despite an inspired oxygen fraction (FiO2) of 0.3–0.4 [1]. In 20% of the patients the saturation is below 81% for up to 5 min [1]. It maybe argued that such hypoxemia does not cause any harm in most patients, but it can hardly be considered a desirable condition and the causes of such hypoxemia should be identified and prevented, if possible. Moreover, post-operative pulmonary complications occur in 1–3% of patients undergoing elective thoracic or abdominal surgery, and the complication rate may increase to 20% in emergency surgery [2, 3]. To what extent post-operative complications are caused by a respiratory dysfunction during anesthesia is not clear. However, atelectasis that has developed during anesthesia remains in the post-operative period, and impairment in arterial oxygenation and decrease in forced spirometry correlate to the size of the atelectasis [4]. Moreover, in view of the large number of anesthestics that are given in the western world, some 30–50000 per million inhabitants, a moderate complication rate will have considerable social and economic consequences.

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Authors
  1. G. Hedenstierna
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Erasme Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Route de Lennik 808, B-1070, Brussels, Belgium

    Jean-Louis Vincent (Head Department of Intensive Care) (Head Department of Intensive Care)

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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hedenstierna, G. (2000). Causes of Oxygenation Impairment During Anesthesia. In: Vincent, JL. (eds) Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2000. Yearbook of Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, vol 2000. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-13455-9_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-13455-9_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66830-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-13455-9

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