Anesthesia for patients with aortic aneurysm for non-aneurysmal surgery--a retrospective study

Most anesthesiologists at one time or other saw the anesthetic management of patients with aortic aneurysm who underwent surgical procedures other than correction of aneurysm with or without prior knowledge of the existence of the aneurysm. The risk of intraoperate rupture of aneurysm depends on its size, type, severity, and presentation of symptoms; stress and unstable hemodynamics have been usually held responsible for the aggravation and even rupture of aneurysm. There are numerous other factors that affect the hemodynamic force during anesthesia and surgery, the increase of which would be very dangerous to the surgical patients with aortic aneurysm whether they receive anesthesia for a radical correction of the disease per se or for a surgical procedure unrelated to its correction. Therefore the anesthetic management of a patient with aortic aneurysm is a great challenge which the anesthesiologist must accept. Here, we present eleven cases of aortic aneurysm, who underwent non-corrective surgery during 1992-1998.

There were eight cases of thoracoaortic dissecting aneurysm and three cases of abdominoaortic aneurysm. All underwent laparotomy under general anesthesia without the aneurysm being corrected. We reviewed the anesthetic management of these patients retrospectively.

Our review showed that no aneurysm rupture was noted in these eleven cases. Seven of the eleven patients are still alive at the time of this report.

We are of the opinion that under close monitoring and with prompt treatment, the allowance of a slow climb of arterial pulse pressure is acceptable and would not increase the risk of aneurysm rupture.