Maintained consciousness during witnessed asystole after spinal anesthesia for Cesarean section
Despite its low incidence, cardiac arrest after spinal anesthesia carries a high mortality. Counterintuitively, young and healthy patients with low resting pulse are at increased risk. We report the case of a healthy 24 yr G2P0 at term scheduled for elective Cesarean section whose heart rate decreased to 30 bpm, followed by more than 30 seconds of asystole 3 minutes after spinal anesthesia with a T4 level block. Following atropine and epinephrine administration, the patient had several single heart beats when startled by the anesthesiologist’s loud voice and when touching her chest to prepare for chest compressions. Eventually, regular sinus rhythm returned with a heart rate of up to 160 bpm. The patient was rapidly prepped, and within 5 minutes, the fetus was delivered surgically with Apgar scores of 8 and 9. Most unusually, the patient remained responsive during the entire event and denied having lost consciousness. Supine position and volume loading may have contributed to venous pooling within the cerebral vasculature, so even in the absence of cerebral blood flow during asystole venous blood may still have been present and delayed cerebral hypoxia. Therefore, loss of consciousness in the supine position may occur considerably after the onset of asystole which may reduce the time available for treatment and contribute to its high mortality. Inspiration during the two startle reactions may have decreased vagal tone and permitted enough spontaneous cardiac activity to circulate the resuscitative drugs without CPR.