Perioperative management of severe interstitial pneumonia for rectal surgery: a case report

This report describes a case of rectal cancer with severe interstitial pneumonia (IP) and chronic pneumothorax. Acute exacerbation of IP is a serious postoperative complication and the consequences are extremely poor. To provide less invasive surgery and to prevent acute exacerbation of the IP, the patient received chemo-radiotherapy for controlling locally advanced tumor following low anterior resection under combined spinal-epidural anesthesia. Adequate epidural analgesia during the postoperative period had been shown and the epidural catheter was removed on the 3rd postoperative day. The patient showed symptoms of intrapelvic abscess due to the anastomotic leakage at 10th postoperative day. In order to avoid complications due to spinal and epidural anesthesia (epidural abscess, meningitis), and to prevent acute exacerbation of the IP, general anesthesia was employed with minimal fraction of inspired oxygen (FIO(2)) to perform the colostomy for the anastomotic leakage. The patient recovered without any postoperative respiratory complications. We herein report the successful perioperative management of a rectal cancer patient with severe IP and chronic pneumothorax, with special attention paid to the respiratory functions.