General anesthesia for pediatric cardiac catheterization - Effects of anesthetics on blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and carbon dioxide

Background : There are limited data about the correlations between amount of anesthetics and variations in vital signs during pediatric cardiac catheterization. Methods : Data in 80 children with congenital heart disease undergoing cardiac catheterization with/without interventional cardiology in 2004 were examined in this retrospective cohort study. Data on blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, partial tension in end tidal carbon dioxide (PET_CO2), and total amount of anesthetics given during general anesthesia were obtained from anesthetic charts. The correlations between amount of anesthetics and those vital signs were analyzed. Results : Median age of the patients was 14 months and median body weight was 8.8 kg. Median rates of variation in heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and PET_CO2 were 22.8%, 29.3%, 5.9% and 10.8%, respectively. Although there were no statistical correlations between those vital signs and amounts of anesthetics such as fentanyl, vecuronium and sevoflurane, rates of variation in heart rate was smaller in patients for whom the amount of fentanyl given was more than 4 μg·kg^-1·hr^-1. Conclusions : There were no associations between amount of anesthetics and variations in vital signs in pediatric cardiac catheterization.