Perianaesthetic management of patients with endocrine disease

Hyper- or hypofunctioning endocrine organs present a number of perianaesthetic challenges. This review covers some of the issues of perianaesthetic management of patients with primary or coexisting pathology of the following endocrine organs: The pancreas with diabetes mellitus as the most common endocrine cause of primary and secondary organ dysfunctions affecting anaesthetic care. Adrenal cortical pathology with excess or deficiency of adrenocortical hormones. Pheochromocytoma of the adrenal medulla with infrequent but challenging perianaesthetic problems. Thyroid gland diseases with hyper- or hypothyroidism. Parathyroid gland pathology with hypercalcaemia or hypocalcaemia. Disorders of the anterior and posterior pituitary gland. The carcinoid syndrome and more uncommon endocrinopathies such as adenomas from the gastroenteropancreatic endocrine tissues and the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome are also reviewed briefly.