Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0392680 (shortness of breath)
 5,217 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Prior to anesthesia a 65-year-old patient received 8 mg dexamethasone to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). Instantly she reported tingling and burning followed by intense pain in the genital region spreading to the whole body. Shortly later she complained about shortness of breath and pre-cordial pain. Acute hypertension could only be lowered by NTG, beta-blockade and induction of anesthesia. The ECG showed ST-segment depressions and troponin-T was elevated (0.3 ng/ml). Coronary angiography revealed no significant stenosis and an abdominal CT scan showed no evidence of a pheochromocytoma. Urine metabolites of catecholamines were negative. Thus, the most likely diagnosis was stimulation of endogenous catecholamines by painful stress after dexamethasone injection with the consequence of myocardial ischemia. As a result we now routinely inject dexamethasone after anesthesia induction as prophylaxis for PONV.
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PMID:[Acute hypertension following dexamethasone. A critical incident during anesthesia]. 1662 58