Expert: Mike MacKinnon MSN CRNA - 12/30/2011

Question
WHAT IS THE WORST THING THAT CAN HAPPEN TO A PERSON THAT GETS TOO MUCH ANESTHESIA?

Answer
Hi Lakeysha

That is a tough question simply because there are so many forms of anesthesia. However the short answer is the worst thing can happen is someone can die just as people do with overdoses of many drugs. This is extraordinarily rare as death directly related to anesthesia is uncommon.

When mortality from anesthesia began to be studied in the 1950s and it is often difficult to sort out mortality due to surgery and patient disease from that due to administration of anesthesia drugs, the rate was somewhere in the vicinity of 1 death related to anesthesia for every 10,000 administrations in otherwise healthy patients. However, due to the introduction of sophisticated monitoring devices, better training, understanding of the physiologic effects of anesthetics and better transmission of information concerning causes of anesthesia mortality, the mortality rate has fallen into the range of 5-6 deaths/million anesthetic administrations.

Hope this helps!