[The effect of postural changes on cerebral hemodynamics during general anesthesia]

Anesthesia may compromise the regulation of systemic and cerebral hemodynamics following changes in body position. Sudden decreases in cerebral perfusion pressure due to changes from a horizontal to a head-elevated position may cause decreases in cerebral blood flow (CBF), particularly in patients with preexisting cerebrovascular disease. Transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) permits on-line measurement of blood flow velocity (BFV) in human basal cerebral arteries, and there is evidence that monitoring of BFV may indicate relative changes in CBF. The present study compares the effects of changes from a horizontal to a head-elevated position on blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) in 30 patients (ASA I) with different levels of steady state anesthesia (group A: n = 20, isoflurane = 1.0 vol% end-tidal; group B: n = 10, isoflurane = 0.4 vol% end-tidal; O2/N2O; FiO2: 0.3; 6 1/min). The MCA was insonated by transtemporal approach using a 2 MHz Doppler ultrasound system (TC2-64 B, EME) with a range-gating mechanism, adjustable sample volume depth, and flow direction discrimination. Systolic (Vsyst, cm/s) and mean flow velocity (Vmean, cm/s), pulsatility index (PI), mean arterial blood pressure (MAP, mmHg), heart rate (HR, b/min) and end-tidal CO2 (pet-CO2, mmHg) were recorded with the subjects lying flat (baseline values) and for 5 min following adjustment to a 35-40 degrees head-elevated position. There was a significant reduction of 25% for Vsyst from 79 +/- 17 cm/s (baseline) to 59 +/- 13 cm/s and a 33% decrease for Vmean from 52 +/- 9 cm/s (baseline) to 35 +/- 9 cm/s in group A immediately after repositioning.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)