[Anesthesia in pacemaker implantation. Experiences in 935 cases of anesthesia for the implantation or revision of a cardiac pacemaker].

Observations during 935 anesthesias for implantation or revision of permanent pacemakers are presented. Using different methods of anesthesia we found the light halothane anesthesia introduced by inhalation to be best, provided that only atropine was used for premedication. Applying this method we saw asystolies or ventricular fibrillation in 3% of all cases--3 patients (i.e. 0.4%) died in tabula. Tachycardia (2.4%) occuring mostly during the introduction period were successfully treated by verapamil or practolol. Hypotension (5.4%) mostly took place in the course of anesthesia after implantation of the pacemaker. This depression may be due to a normalisation of the enhanced stroke volume whedication with pethidine or induction with propanidid was followed by comparatively more complications such as exitus letalis (2% resp. 1.5%), cardiac arrest (6.5% resp. 9%) and hypotension (24% resp. 10.5%). Regional anesthesia did not bring specific advantages. The good experiences with soft halothane anesthesia for implantations or revisions of pacemakers include 125 high risk patients (ASA classification IV to VII).