GLEN ALLEN, Va., Dec. 10, 2025 — A 36-year retrospective study of out-of-hospital deep sedation and general anesthesia (DS/GA) for dental treatment in British Columbia found just three anesthesia-related deaths among 1,019,853 procedures and no cases of severe morbidity.
Researchers from the University of Toronto and Western University published the paper in Anesthesia Progress. Lead author Paul Azzopardi, DDS, MSc, and colleagues searched the College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia and the Chief Coroner of British Columbia databases, plus digital and print gray literature, to identify deaths and serious injuries linked to DS/GA between 1984 and 2019.
The team applied strict inclusion criteria: procedures had to occur in British Columbia, be performed out of hospital by qualified providers using DS/GA, and involve mortality or serious morbidity within 30 days attributable to anesthesia or actions under the anesthesiologist’s control. Severe morbidity was defined according to standardized injury-severity scales used by the authors.
Their search identified three qualifying deaths — one in 1986 and two in 1987 — and no severe morbidity events. All three fatalities involved the same oral surgeon and three different physician anesthesiologists. Investigators concluded each death resulted from a venous air embolism after a dental drill not rated for implant surgery was used.
“Among more than one million out-of-hospital DS/GA dental procedures in British Columbia from 1984 to 2019, only three anesthesia-related deaths were identified,” the authors wrote, adding that the findings suggest a low risk of mortality or serious morbidity for these procedures in that jurisdiction.
The study also evaluated search strategies for capturing anesthesia-related adverse events, noting the benefit of combining professional registries with coroner records and media searches to locate rare occurrences.
