A woman may have died from a one-in-a-hundred allergic reaction during a hip operation.
Dorothy Allan, 75, underwent the procedure to fix her broken femur at Horton General Hospital, Banbury, on August 29.
An inquest held at Oxford Coroner’s Court on Thursday heard how Mrs Allan, who lived with her husband Ian in Horton View, Banbury, was given general anaesthetic for the “standard” procedure, but never woke up from this.
Pathologist Dr Lucie Winter, of Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital, said she found traces of a cement used to repair the broken bone in Mrs Allan’s lungs, and said: “It is possible this was an allergic reaction to the cement when it reached the lungs.”
Dr Ahmed Abdelaal, who performed the hip operation on Mrs Allan, told the inquest that only one per cent of people had an allergic reaction to the cement, and that 48 in 10,000 died from that reaction.
Assistant coroner Nicholas Graham said the medical cause of death had been a cardiac arrest following cement implantation.
He ruled Mrs Allan’s death was accidental.