Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0020440 (hypercapnia)
 7,939 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 45-year-old woman underwent radical neck clipping for cerebral aneurysm under isoflurane anesthesia. Her preoperative examination revealed elevated body temperature which had been normal on admission. Her body temperature increased up to 40.3 degrees C during anesthesia and surgery, and it showed a downward trend at the end of surgery. Malignant hyperthermia was excluded because the patient did not have metabolic acidosis, hypercarbia, hyperpotassemia or abnormal sweating anesthesia. The patient received intravenous dantrolene postoperatively since there was a suspicion of malignant hyperthermia on the basis of hyperthermia and increases in serum creatine kinase (CK) and myoglobin (Mb) levels. Her body temperature and serum CK and Mb levels decreased for a while after administration of dantrolene, but they increased again thereafter. The patient was aggressively cooled with a cooling blanket and hyperthermia and increases in serum CK and Mb levels disappeared in postoperative two weeks. She was discharged on foot without any neurological deficit on the forty-third hospital day. According to the diagnostic criteria for malignant hyperthermia by Larach and his colleague, malignant hyperthermia was somewhat less than likely in our case. The clinical course of the patient also suggested that a possibility of malignant hyperthermia was considerably low. The authors conclude that perioperative hyperthermia in our case must have derived from central hyperthermia following subarachnoid hemorrhage, and that postoperative increases in serum CK and Mb levels might have resulted from acceleration of sympathetic nervous system by subarachnoid hemorrhage.
 ...
PMID:[Central hyperthermia suspected of malignant hyperthermia in a patient undergoing radical neck clipping for cerebral aneurysm]. 1571 69

You are the attending intensivist in a neurointensive care unit caring for a woman five days post-rupture of a cerebral aneurysm (World Federation of Neurological Surgeons Grade 4 and Fisher Grade 3). She is intubated for airway protection and mild hypoxemia related to an aspiration event at the time of aneurysm rupture, but is breathing spontaneously on the ventilator. Your patient is spontaneously hyperventilating with high tidal volumes despite minimal support and has developed significant hypocapnia. She has not yet developed the acute respiratory distress syndrome. You debate whether to tightly control her partial pressure of arterial carbon dioxide, weighing the known risks of acute hypocapnia in other forms of brain injury against the potential loss of clinical neuromonitoring associated with deep sedation and neuromuscular blockade in this patient who is at high risk of delayed ischemia from vasospasm. You are also aware of the potential implications of tidal volume control if this patient were to develop the acute respiratory distress syndrome and the effect of permissive hypercapnia on her intracranial pressure. In this paper we provide a detailed and balanced examination of the issues pertaining to this clinical scenario, including suggestions for clinical management of ventilation, sedation and neuromonitoring. Until more definitive clinical trial evidence is available to guide practice, clinicians are forced to carefully weigh the potential benefits of tight carbon dioxide control against the potential risks in each individual patient based on the clinical issues at hand.
...
PMID:Pro/con debate: should PaCO2 be tightly controlled in all patients with acute brain injuries? 2336 May 55