Opioid use and sleep apnea should be considered when evaluating postanesthesia care unit desaturations seen after intraoperative use of 100% oxygen

摘要

This is an interesting article and we congratulate the authors on the elegant prospective randomized study design. The essence of the reported findings was a lower arterial oxygen level in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at 60min after extubation within the 100% oxygen group.1 However, there are no data about other factors that would influence this finding. We would like to know if the authors considered any potential confounding variables. Rose et al.2 elaborated on such potential factors. It is worthy to note that their study included many different surgeries as well as patients who did not have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. However, they did report that perioperative risk factors associated with critical respiratory events (hypoxemia, hypoventilation, and/or airway obstruction) in postanesthesia care unit (PACU) include age more than 60, male sex, diabetes mellitus, and obesity.