Young and previously healthy females have been reported to develop sev
ere postoperative hyponatremia with a fatal outcome. The clinical pres
entation is dramatic, with seizures, respiratory arrest, and permanent
, often catastrophic, brain damage. The true incidence is unknown. We
report a survey of 290,815 surgical procedures on females at the Mayo
Clinic from 1976 to 1992. Postoperatively 1,498 females had cardiopulm
onary arrest, 255 had a metabolic encephalopathy, 32 had new-onset sei
zures, and 6 had central pontine myelinolysis. We failed to identify a
ny association of respiratory arrest with postoperative hyponatremia.
Our findings indicate that the postoperative hyponatremia syndrome in
young, healthy females with respiratory arrest is extremely uncommon.