Significant hypertension may occur during anesthesia. The cause needs to be identified and treated in order to optimize the patient's outcome.
Causes of hypertension during anesthesia:
(1) pseudohypertension (due to an error in the monitoring equipment)
(2) administration of vasopressors or other drugs that raise the blood pressure
(3) failure to give medication prior to surgery that are needed to control blood pressure in a patient with a history of hypertension
(4) inadequate depth of anesthesia
(5) fluid overload
(6) airway difficulty with hypoventilation or hypoxemia
(7) hypercarbia
(8) surgical stimulus including cross clamping of the aorta
(9) raised intracranial pressure
(10) hyperthyroidism
(11) malignant hyperthermia
(12) pheochromocytoma or other neuroendocrine tumor
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Purpose: To identify possible explanations for hypertension during anesthesia.
Specialty: Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Emergency Medicine, Pulmonology
Objective: differential diagnosis and mimics, red flags
ICD-10: T88.5,
