Age-related incidence of desaturation events and the cardiac responses on stroke index, cardiac index, and heart rate measured by continuous bioimpedance noninvasive cardiac output monitoring in infants and children undergoing general anesthesia

Events associated with desaturation in children under general anesthesia were significantly associated with decreased SI with a greater effect with lower saturation nadirs. It is unclear if other concurrent events could have also contributed to adverse hemodynamic responses during desaturation. In most children, a compensatory increase in HR generally offsets concurrent decreases in CI. It would appear that bradycardia is a late manifestation of hypoxemia.