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Death potentially secondary to sub‐Tenon's block
Author(s) -
Quantock C. L.,
Goswami T.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2006.04894.x
Subject(s) - medicine , mortise and tenon , ventricular fibrillation , anesthesia , coronary artery disease , resuscitation , refractory (planetary science) , surgery , cardiology , physics , structural engineering , astrobiology , engineering
Summary An 82‐year‐old ASA 2 patient underwent routine sub‐Tenon's block for cataract surgery. One minute after injection of the local anaesthetic, the patient had a generalised tonic‐clonic seizure and developed refractory ventricular fibrillation; subsequent resuscitation was unsuccessful. With no evidence for intravascular injection, the lack of structural brain abnormalities, and the most striking feature on post mortem examination being severe triple vessel coronary artery disease, it was concluded that this was primarily cardiac in origin; however, the possibility of brainstem anaesthesia should also be considered.