One of the questions frequently asked by patients and their relatives is whether general anesthesia carries a serious risk. There is only one answer to this question: Yes, there is a risk of death in general anesthesia. No surgeon or anesthesiologist can give an absolute guarantee that a patient who will undergo general anesthesia will be able to wake up safely. Although this fact, which is indisputable in the medical world, is sometimes not fully expressed by healthcare professionals in our country, all risks, including death, are written in the consent forms that are routinely signed by patients, but are generally not read by patients.
The risk of death in general anesthesia should be clearly explained to all patients who will undergo surgery under general anesthesia. The fact that this risk is very low does not require that this information not be shared with the person who will undergo surgery. Every patient and patient's relative should know and accept this possibility.
On the other hand, this probability is actually quite low. Today, we can say that this probability is between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 200,000. However, this statistic is valid for all age groups. In other words, elderly and patients with poor health conditions are also included in this number. On the other hand, in the young age group (under 50) and in people without serious health problems, this risk drops to slightly less than 1 in a million. This risk is close to the risk of death in an airplane flight.
So what does this one in a hundred thousand or million risk mean to us? How high or how low are these odds? To give you an idea, I am quoting some numbers from a website:
Estimated risk of death
Motorcycle racing 1 per thousand
Running, jogging 1 per thousand
>Swimming 1 in a million 1 in a million
Cycling in one hundred and forty thousand &n bsp; 1
Driving with a license 16 per hundred thousand
Riding an airplane 1.3 per hundred thousand
To summarize, the risk of death due to general anesthesia in young and healthy individuals is 1 per million. It can be said that it is lower than . This is of course a very low risk, but this risk is never zero and patients and their relatives need to know and accept this and be aware of their responsibility.
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