Combined General Anaesthesia with Retrolaminar Block for Breast Cancer Surgery in Pompe’s Disease

Abstract

Pompe’s disease is a rare metabolic disease that results in progressive muscle weakness which culminates in respiratory failure in the late onset type. Patients with Pompe’s disease are at high risk of cardiac and respiratory complications under general anaesthesia owing to their premorbid cardiac and respiratory impairments, as well as the respiratory depressant effects of anaesthetic and analgesic agents. We present a high-risk case of a patient with late onset Pompe’s disease complicated by severe restrictive lung disease scheduled for breast cancer surgery under general anaesthesia with a single shot retrolaminar nerve block for analgesia.