Jaundice after Repeated Exposure to Halothane: An Analysis of Reports to the Committee on Safety of Medicines

Abstract

Aanalysis of data derived from 170 reports of jaundice developing after anaesthesia with halothane received after January 1974 confirmed the relations between multiple exposure to halothane and jaundice and between the number of exposures and the rapidity with which jaundice develops after exposure. When these reports were combined with 130 received earlier complete anaesthetic histories were available for 251 patients, 205 (82%) of whom had been exposed to halothane more than once; of these patients, 154 (75%) had been exposed more than once within 28 days. Altogether 139 (46%) of the 300 patients died.