Introduction of a new patient monitoring system during dental procedures: pulse oximetry.

This paper describes three cases of early detection of hypoxia with pulse oximeter during intravenous sedation. In the main study group over 40 patients were monitored by pulse oximetry during large dental operation under iv-sedation. Diatsepam with soybean oily solvent and midatsolam were used as intravenous sedative agents in this study. The first signs of hypoxia were seen by pulse oximetry. In three healthy patients some periods of remarkable hypoxia was detected and those cases are reported in this paper. Two of the patients were treated by a surgical operation and one patient underwent large conservative dental treatment under sedation because of dental care fobia. During the dental treatment period external oxygen was added for all these three patients to avoid more complications as a result of hypoxia. Two of the patients received an injection of bentsodiatsepine antagonist, too. One patient needed further follow up but non of these patients developed any additional complications. As a conclusion pulse oximetric monitoring was found to be extremely sensitive as a predictor for coming complications as well as allowing early intervention in ventilation problems.