Electrocardiographic Changes In Hypertensive Patients Undergoing Minor Oral Surgery

Abstract

The use of local anaesthesia containing adrenaline is a common phenomenon in minor oral surgical procedures. This study was undertaken to determine the electrocardiographic changes in Nigerian hypertensives during these procedures. Sixty three hypertensive patients were studied. Of these, 25 patients were known hypertensives who were defaulting on treatment while 38 patients were previously undetected. They were age and sex matched with a control group of 63 normotensive adult patients. It was observed from the electrocardiographic changes in the hypertensive patients that oral surgical procedures caused first-degree atrio-ventricular block and right bundle branch block, which appears not to have been previously reported. Furthermore, this study demonstrates ST segment depression during surgery phase. While previous studies have shown alteration in rhythm only, our study has shown that conduction disturbances do occur.

KEY WORDS: Electrocardiographic changes, hypertensives, minor oral surgery.