Abandoning inhumane terminal withdrawal of ventilatory support and extubation in the imminently dying: the role of high-quality palliative care

Palliative General Anesthesia at Terminal Extubation: "Go Gentle into that Good Night"

Withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments in the intensive care unit most often culminates into the discontinuation of mechanical ventilation and removal of the endotracheal tube or "terminal extubation." Standards of practice call for the appropriate use of analgesia and sedation before, during and after extubation with an explicit goal to relieve suffering but not to hasten death. Patients subjected to this procedure are exposed to variable pharmacologic agents, modes, and doses, without any knowledge or monitoring of what these patients are experiencing. This practice seems to rest on contestable assumptions regarding the reliability of bedside examination, the experiential states of unresponsive patients, and the scope of the doctrine of double effect; instead, I argue for palliative general anesthesia in order to safeguard against potential suffering at the end of life. I employ philosophical notions of harm to justify the normative status of palliative anesthesia, in conjunction with contemporary evidence as it relates to the phenomena of covert consciousness and cognitive-motor dissociation. If this analysis is correct, then it may serve as a valid challenge toward current practice without having engaged into controversial debates over the soundness of the doctrine of double effect, or euthanasia. Primun non nocere offers the strongest justification for general anesthesia when terminal extubation is planned.

Compassionate extubation for a peaceful death in the setting of a community hospital: a case-series study

BACKGROUND

The use of compassionate extubation (CE) to alleviate suffering by terminating mechanical ventilation and withdrawing the endotracheal tube requires professional adherence and efficiency. The Hospice Palliative Care Act, amended on January 9, 2013, legalizes the CE procedure in Taiwan.

METHODS

From September 20, 2013 to September 2, 2014, the hospice palliative care team at a community hospital received 20 consultations for CE. Eight cases were excluded because of non-qualification. Following approval from the Ethics Committee, the medical records of the remaining 12 patients were reviewed and grouped by the underlying disease: A, "terminal-stage cancer"; B, "non-cancer out-of-hospital cardiac arrest"; and C, "non-cancer organ failure". Time to extubation using a cut-off at 48 hours was assessed.

RESULTS

The mean ages of patients (standard deviation) in groups A, B, and C were 66.3 (14.9) years, 72 (19.1) years, and 80.3 (4.0) years, respectively. The mean number of days of intubation at consultation were 6.8 (4.9), 7.3 (4.9), and 179.3 (271.6), respectively. The mean total doses of opioids (as morphine-equivalent dose) in the 24 hours preceding CE were 76 (87.5) mg, 3.3 (5.8) mg, and 43.3 (15.3) mg. The median times from extubation (range) to death were 97 (0.2-245) hours, 0.3 (0.2-0.4) hours, and 6.1 (3.6-71.8) hours. Compared to those requiring <48-hour preparatory time, patients requiring >48 hours to the moment of CE were younger (62.8 years vs 75.5 years), required a mean time of 122 hours (vs 30 hours) to CE (P=0.004), had shorter length of stay (33.3 days vs 77.8 days), required specialist social worker intervention in 75% of cases (vs 37.5%), and had a median duration of intubation of 11.5 days (vs 5.5 days).

CONCLUSION

CE was carried out according to protocol, and the median time from extubation to death varies determined by the underlying disease which was 0.3 hour in patients admitted after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and 97 hours in patients with advanced cancer.