Anaesthesia in stokes-adams disease

Abstract

Fourteen patients with a history of Stokes-Adams disease have received m all 26 anaesthetics, mostly for the implantation of an artificial pacemaker There is a considerable danger that Stokes-Adams attacks may occur during the course of anaesthesia and, therefore, it is considered important to pace the heart artificially with an intravenous electrode catheter pnor to the; induction of anaesthesia. The mam danger of the electrode catheter is that minor current leaks from other apparatus (such as an E K G machine ) may run to ground through the catheter and cause ventricular fibrillation. The anaesthetic techniques employed in these cases were varied and were those in current use for other thoracotomies Few problems were encountered during the course of these anaesthetics, and this is attributed to the fact that in most of the patients the heart rate was controlled prior to the induction of anaesthesia by means of an artificial pacemaker. © 1964 Canadian Anesthesiologists.