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Acute heart failure during spinal surgery in a boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy
G N Schmidt1, M-A Burmeister, C Lilje
1Department of Anaesthesiology, University Hospital Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany. guschmid@uke.uni-hamburg.de
British Journal of Anaesthesia
|May 27, 2003
Abstract:
Patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are at high risk of perioperative complications. DMD may be accompanied by heart failure resulting from dystrophic involvement of the myocardium, which can be subclinical in the early stages of the disease. This case demonstrates that a normal preoperative ECG and echocardiograph cannot exclude the development of heart failure during anaesthesia in DMD patients undergoing major surgery.