Anaesthesia for vascular emergencies

Patients presenting with vascular emergencies including acute aortic syndrome, ruptured thoracic or abdominal aortic aneurysms, thoracic aortic trauma and acute lower limb ischaemia have a high risk of peri-operative morbidity and mortality. Although anatomical suitability is not universal, endovascular surgery may improve mortality and the results of ongoing randomised controlled trials are awaited. Permissive hypotension pre-operatively should be the standard of care with the systolic blood pressure kept to 50-100 mmHg as long as consciousness is maintained. The benefit of local anaesthesia over general anaesthesia is not definitive and this decision should be tailored for a given patient and circumstance. Cerebrospinal fluid drainage for prevention of paraplegia is often impractical in the emergency setting and is not backed by strong evidence; however, it should be considered postoperatively if symptoms develop. We discuss the pertinent anaesthetic issues when a patient presents with a vascular emergency and the impact that endovascular repair has on anaesthetic management.