Anaesthesia for patients with multiple sclerosis

The types of anaesthesia administered to 56 multiple sclerosis patients undergoing surgery in the different departments of the Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) during a ten year period from 1973 to 1982 were studied. The perioperative and postoperative events were analyzed in relation to the method of anaesthesia. Infiltration methods (24 patients), mainly for thalamotomy, were well tolerated. General anaesthesia (28 patients), with or without the use of succinylcholine, seemed not to cause any circulatory or respiratory troubles to the MS-patients. In four patients who were given regional anaesthesia (2 spinal, 3 epidural) marked by hypotension, quite resistant to intravenous vasopressor treatment was observed. No deterioration of the multiple sclerosis was noted postoperatively which could be related to the anaesthesia.