Background: Ensuring patient safety during small animal anaesthesia is crucial. This study aimed to assess anaesthetic-related deaths in dogs globally, identify risks and protective factors and inform clinical practice.
Methods: This prospective cohort multicentric study involved 55,022 dogs from 405 veterinary centres across various countries. Data on anaesthesia-related deaths from premedication to 48 hours post-extubation were collected. Logistic regression was used to analyse patient demographics, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification, procedure type and anaesthetic drugs used.
Results: Anaesthetic-related mortality was 0.69%. Most deaths occurred postoperatively (81%). Age, obesity and a higher ASA classification score were associated with increased mortality. Urgent procedures, non-urgent but unscheduled anaesthesias and short procedures also had higher mortality. Some sedatives, systemic analgesics, hypnotics and the use of locoregional anaesthesia were linked to a decrease in mortality.
Limitations: The limitations of the study include the non-randomised sample, potential selection bias, lack of response rate quantification, variable data quality control, subjectivity in classifying causes of death and limited analysis of variables.
Conclusion: Careful patient evaluation, drug selection and monitoring can be associated with reduced mortality. These findings can be used to develop guidelines and strategies to improve patient safety and outcomes. Further research is needed to refine protocols, enhance data quality systems and explore additional risk mitigation measures.
© 2023 The Authors. Veterinary Record published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Veterinary Association.