Acta Anaesthesiologica Taiwanica
Volume 48, Issue 2 , Pages 94-98, June 2010

Unexpected Pulmonary Aspiration During Endoscopy Under Intravenous Anesthesia

  • Po-Jung Lai

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • Department of Anesthesiology, Songshan Armed Forces General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • ,
  • Fa-Chang Chen

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • ,
  • Shung-Tai Ho

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • ,
  • Chen-Hwan Cherng

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • ,
  • Szu-Tzu Liu

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Songshan Armed Forces General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • ,
  • Che-Hao Hsu

      Affiliations

    • Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Department of Anesthesiology, Tri-service General Hospital/National Defense Medical Center, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C

Received 27 April 2009; received in revised form 27 January 2010; accepted 1 February 2010.

Article Outline

Intravenous anesthesia is commonly used during endoscopy. This approach greatly improves patient satisfaction with pain control. The risks of anesthesia are usually focused on the cardiopulmonary effects of anesthetics. The risk of pulmonary aspiration is often overlooked, unless there are other risk factors that may increase the incidence of pulmonary aspiration. Here, we report a patient with unexpected aspiration pneumonia after gastroscopy under intravenous anesthesia. We suggest that pulmonary aspiration should be taken into consideration as a risk associated with anesthesia for gastroscopy.

Key Words:  anesthesia , conscious sedation , gastroscopy , pneumonia

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PII: S1875-4597(10)60021-5

doi:10.1016/S1875-4597(10)60021-5

Acta Anaesthesiologica Taiwanica
Volume 48, Issue 2 , Pages 94-98, June 2010

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