[Cardiac arrest during anesthesia--a case of effective open chest massage].

A 58-year-old man suffering from esophageal cancer was scheduled for radical resection and reconstruction of the esophagus. Immediately after the start of the operation, with the patient under general anesthesia, cardiac arrest occurred. The operation was immediately discontinued and closed chest heart massage was started. As the patient did not respond, open chest massage was initiated. Cardiac arrest can be caused by any one of a number of factors. This case was suspected to have had a coronary artery spasm. It took a total of 100 minutes to resuscitate the patient. But resuscitation was successful without any resulting neurological damage. This was attributed to appropriate open chest massage. If a case of cardiac arrest due to any coronary artery disease does not respond to the usual cardiopulmonary resuscitation, we should consider open chest massage.