Anaesthesia and systemic oxygenation

Anaesthesia induction and deep anaesthesia may be accompanied by a considerable haemodynamic depression, especially in patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases. A decrease in cardiac index (CI) leads to a concomitant decrease in oxygen transport (DO2I). We examined whether these changes in haemodynamic performance and oxygenation can cause an oxygen debt and anaerobic metabolism.

DO2I, oxygen uptake (VO2I), oxygen extraction ratio (O2ER) and plasma lactate were analysed at 9 pre-defined study stages during anesthesia induction, deep anaesthesia prior to surgery and during surgery in 65 patients (ASA 3) undergoing elective vascular surgery. Polynomials of increasing order were fitted to the data for the determination of the critical value of oxygen transport from the inflection point of the regression curve.

CI, heart rate, mean arterial pressure and DO2I decreased significantly after anaesthesia induction and during deep anaesthesia. VO2I showed an almost parallel change during the study period so that O2ER remained nearly constant. Plasma lactate did not exceed the physiological range in any patient and a critical value of DO2I could not be detected because a linear regression always provided the best fit for the data.

We conclude that in patients suffering from a substantial cardiovascular disease systemic oxygenation is not impaired by considerable haemodynamic changes induced by general anaesthesia. This fact can be explained by the parallel decrease in oxygen demand, expressed by the decrease in VO2I.