Intraoperative Cardiac Arrest: Literature Review and New Tool to Patient’s and Team’s Safety - Abstract
The international guidelines describe the management of cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) in out-of-hospital and in-hospital settings, stipulating algorithm to management a CPA; the intraoperative environment is a setting with unique characteristics respect other hospital place for example the presence of ALS team and advanced monitoring.
Intraoperative cardiac arrest (ICA) is complex in relation to the anesthetic procedure (i.e. consciousness and breathing are altered by anesthetic drugs), in relation to surgical procedures (i.e. thoracic, general nonvascular and robotic surgery), in relation to election, urgency or emergency. The presence of these elements makes CPA in OR unique, also its recognition and treatment must be specific to the operating theatre: the international mnemonic acronym “4H-4T” represents only the 50% of total causes of ICA, in fact the causes discoveries by literature are sixteen16. Some authors identified roles and competences of health care provider in OR, others elaborated treatment algorithms, but many subject continue to be remain controversial (i.e. the application of open chest cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the absence of a team leader).