Postoperative care of vascular surgery patients

Vascular surgery continues to carry one of the highest postoperative morbidity and mortality rates. A detailed understanding of postoperative central nervous, myocardial, respiratory, and renal pathophysiology potentially helps to improve outcome. Current economic constraints, combined with changing intraoperative management, prompt inquiry into whether these patients can safely be managed outside of an intensive care unit setting. This article reviews whether efforts to less invasively manage these patients intraoperatively improves postoperative outcome remains under investigation, and what is known about the effects on postoperative outcome of regional anesthesia for carotid endarterectomy and endovascular treatment of aortic vascular disease.