Cardiac rate and rhythm during anaesthesia for dental extraction. A comparison of halothane, enflurane and isoflurane.

Cardiac rate and rhythm were compared in 60 patients having dental extractions under conventional general anaesthesia using halothane, enflurane or isoflurane to supplement nitrous oxide in oxygen. The incidence of arrhythmia was higher in the halothane group when compared with both the enflurane (P less than 0.05) and the isoflurane (P less than 0.05) groups. Heart rates, measured at 1-min intervals, tended to be more rapid in the isoflurane group compared with the other two groups (P less than 0.001 in both instances), and patients anaesthetized with enflurane tended to have more rapid heart rates than those anaesthetized with halothane (P less than 0.001).