1/3. Anaesthetic management of a caesarean section in a patient with Marfan's syndrome and aortic dissection.This report describes a case of a Stanford Type B aortic dissection (originating distal to the left subclavian artery and extending to the aortic bifurcation and proximal left iliac artery) in a 31-year-old primigravid woman who was at 39 weeks gestation and had Marfan's syndrome. The dissection was managed conservatively. Caesarean section was performed under epidural anaesthesia with aggressive control of hypertension. Postoperatively, there was no extension of the dissection and no aneurysm formation. She was discharged from hospital two weeks after delivery and remained asymptomatic at six months. There are no plans for surgical intervention.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = anaesthesia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/3. Acute aortic occlusion presenting with lower limb paralysis.In a two year period eight patients have presented with acute aortic occlusion and a poor outcome in seven. Initial failure to diagnose aortic occlusion, with a mean delay from presentation to diagnosis of 24 hours, was mainly responsible. All patients had varying degrees of paralysis on presentation which misled clinicians although other findings of acute ischaemia (pain, absent pulses, colour change and anaesthesia) were always present. Two patients were initially referred to a neurologist, another to a neurosurgeon, and the fourth to an orthopaedic surgeon. Even after diagnosis had been established, the need for urgent revascularization was not always recognized, the mean time from diagnosis to revascularization being 13 hours. Unnecessary aortography contributed to this delay in four patients. In two patients operative treatment was not undertaken while six were treated operatively by: aortic bifurcation graft (3), aortic thromboendarterectomy and femoropopliteal bypass (1), open aortic embolectomy (1) and bilateral femoral embolectomy (1). The causes of aortic occlusion were thrombosis of an atherosclerotic aorta (5), thrombosis of an aneurysm (2) and embolism (1). In the latter patient, the heparin induced thrombocytopenia syndrome (HITS) was primarily responsible. The outcomes in the eight patients were death (5), paraplegia (1), amputation (1), and uncomplicated recovery (1). The single patient who made an uncomplicated recovery had the shortest delay from presentation to revascularization of only 2 1/4 hours. Acute aortic occlusion rivals aortic rupture as a vascular emergency and demands immediate operative intervention.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = anaesthesia (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/3. Anaesthesia for caesarean section in a Marfan patient with recurrent aortic dissection.PURPOSE: We report the anaesthetic management of a 34-yr-old pregnant woman with recurrent aortic dissection and marfan syndrome for Caesarean section. CLINICAL FEATURES: She presented at 28 wk gestation with recurrent aortic dissection and had undergone aortic valve replacement and coronary ostia reimplantation (Bentall procedure) in the first trimester of pregnancy. She was treated in hospital with labetalol, anticoagulants and steroids and daily echocardiographic examination until 34 wk when caesarean section was planned. After positioning radial artery and CVP catheters and a transoesophageal echocardiographic probe, general anaesthesia was induced with thiopentone and maintained with isoflurane, and endotracheal intubation was facilitated with vecuronium. The site of incision was infiltrated with lidocaine before surgery which was uneventful. The patient was discharged at 10 days. CONCLUSIONS: With appropriate preoperative care and monitoring, uneventful general anaesthesia for caesarean section was achieved in a patient with marfan syndrome in the presence of recurrent aortic dissection.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 2keywords = anaesthesia (Clic here for more details about this article) |