Cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the operating room

The occurrence of cardiac arrest during anesthesia and surgery is nowadays associated with many challenges imposed by 21st century medicine. On the one hand, good education of healthcare practitioners, sophisticated anesthetic techniques and equipment, along with safer anesthetics and improved surgical techniques have significantly reduced the risk of cardiac arrest during the perioperative period. Still, the introduction of new, invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures in the aging patients and those with comorbidities carries along new risk and challenges. Epidemiological data indicate that intraoperative cardiac arrest is an extremely rare event. Due to variety of moral and ethical prejudices, intraoperative cardiac arrest is frequently presented as if it has happened in the immediate postoperative period, following surgery and anesthesia. The preventive measures, the etiology and diagnosis of cardiac arrest, as well as the specificities regarding organization and performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the operating room, result in a better prognosis compared to other hospital departments. The article also describes the specifics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the catheterization laboratory, while a separate section is dedicated to cardiopulmonary resuscitation following systemic toxicity of local anesthetics. Since intraoperative cardiac arrest and death represent very rare complications, European Resuscitation Council has only recently published Guidelines for Resuscitation for performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation in the operating room – in 2015