Management of cardiac patients for non-cardiac surgery.

Abstract

Patients with cardiac diseases undergoing non-cardiac surgery experience more perioperative problems than the others. The prevention of these problems includes proper preoperative evaluation of patients, careful intraoperative management and postoperative surveillance. Preoperative examination of such patients, including echocardiography if necessary, is crucial. The need for preoperative medication (e.g. beta-blockers, statins) ought to be carefully considered. Intraoperative management requires goal-directed haemodynamic monitoring and therapy as well as proper fluid infusion. There are no data confirming the superiority of general over regional anaesthesia in such patients. However, lower incidence of pulmonary complications and lower mortality rates were observed after regional blocks.