Anesthesia and Pulmonary Hypertension: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a complex disease of the cardiopulmonary system. Perioperative management of PH is one of the most challenging issues for the anesthetists. Morbidity and mortality are significantly high in PH patients undergoing surgery due to right heart failure, arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, ischemia, hemodynamic unstability, hypoxia, respiratory failure, renal failure, sepsis, and stroke. In PH patients, it is important that more than one physician, including anesthesiologist, intensivist, pulmonologist, cardiologist, and surgeon, discuss the patient’s possible difficulties and complications with a multidisciplinary approach and make a decision. In order to optimize the management of PH patients, it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate the underlying cause, pathophysiology, risk factors, course, and treatment of the disease. A balanced anesthesia technique, including inhalation or intravenous agents, appropriate regional anesthesia (RA), opioids, and α-2-adrenoceptor agonists, may provide the most uniform hemodynamic profile in these patients. The basis of anesthesia management should be to prevent and treat triggering factors, provide perfusion pressures, and optimize right ventricular functions. Advanced monitoring, pulmonary vasodilator therapies, adequate anesthesia and analgesia, and appropriate ventilator settings should be performed for patients with PH. Patients with PH should be followed in the intensive care unit in the first 48–72 h postoperatively. Our review aims to focus on appropriate preoperative preparation, perioperative monitoring, anesthesia and ventilator management, pain control, preventive methods, and treatment in patients with PH in light of the literature.