Anesthesia is the most significant finding in
the modern surgery; in fact, this remarkable element has changed the medicine
in general since anesthesia was introduced for a first time in medicine by
William T. G. Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, in 1846. Avoiding pain and side
effects during the surgery, it is a benefit for both patients and doctors.
However, this painless technique is a double-edged sword.
It is true that anesthesia avoids pain in a
surgery, but its effects can make you avoid pain forever. In other words,
anesthesia can cause death. Soon after it was introduced, doctors looked how
many patients died during surgeries. Deaths increasing rate during the first years
of anesthesia was mainly related to mismanagement of the substance. As a
consequence, several researchers started developing new types of this miraculous
but lethal discovery, ending in the development of new anesthetic substances and
the creation of local and regional anesthesia.
After about 170 years of anesthesia, people are
still dying in the Ors of now-identified reasons. For example, Malignant
Hyperthermia, a disorder that affects patients’ muscles, heart rate and body
temperature, causing him/her death. A characteristic of this disorder is that
it doesn’t present any symptom before the surgery. Before the antidote was
discovered in the 1970s, 80% of the people who had this syndrome died.
Nowadays, only 5 % of the people died of this during an intervention, because
there are tests to identify if you had this disorder.
Anesthesia may be considered dangerous
nevertheless it is primal for surgeons. However, now there is plenty of
knowledge about how to use it and the cares doctors and patients have to take.
Is that knowledge enough to avoid deaths? Should people fear to be anesthetized?
You may think about your own experience in a surgery.
I think everything has a risk in life. People can die even because of a cold. The difference nowadays is that the probability of dying has been narrowed due to all the medical discoveries. As you said, anesthesia is the most significant finding in the modern surgery and people shouldn't be afraid; people should trust on doctors. Maybe their knowledge is not enough to save everyone in the world, but doctors do their best.
ReplyDeleteWe shoulg be careful, but almost everything we do during our lives has risks we need to take. Are you going to die from appendicitis just because there is a tiny possibility that you may never wake up from anesthesia? Of course not.
ReplyDeleteIt a risk, indeed, but a necessary one. Also, if you have the chance - and the money- you can ask for an epidural, and still that is dangerous because you may be paralyzed for the rest of your life.
As published in "Anesthesiology"the Journal of American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc. (Cheney, Frederick, Posner, Karen L., Lee, Lorri A., Caplan, Robert A., Domino, Karen B.; 2006)After the introduction and use of pulse oximetry and end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring, there was a significant reduction in the proportion of respiratory and an increase in the proportion of cardiovascular damaging events responsible for death or permanent brain damage.
ReplyDeleteSeveral studies from 1995 to the current year had proven that there's a need of a "Death ofr anesthesia" registration to have more data to put together a list with most common ocurrences.
And as we said about science we should always be more critical about things and demanding for more data about this topic is what scientists and orselves must do