Anaphylaxis During Cardiac Surgery: Implications for Clinicians

Abstract

During surgery, patients are exposed to multiple foreign substances including anesthetic drugs, antibiotics, blood products, heparin, polypeptides (aprotinin, latex, and protamine), and intravascular volume expanders, which have the potential to produce life-threatening allergic reactions termed "anaphylaxis." The hallmark of perioperative anaphylaxis is acute cardiovascular and pulmonary dysfunction. Patients undergoing cardiac surgery have extensive monitoring that permits rapid recognition and treatment when anaphylaxis occurs. Initial, smaller doses of drugs, often called test doses, administered before the therapeutic dose may produce anaphylaxis, and so clinicians need to be prepared to treat reactions if they occur. Institution of cardiopulmonary bypass for hemodynamically unstable patients can be a life-saving maneuver, and should be considered in patients with refractory cardiovascular dysfunction. Arginine vasopressin should also be con- sidered for patients with vasodilatory shock. In this review, we focus on recent concepts in understanding the incidence and management approaches for patients at risk for anaphylaxis in the operating room setting, with an emphasis on cardiac surgical patients. (Anesth Analg 2008;106:392-403) During cardiac and noncardiac surgery, patients are exposed to multiple foreign substances including anesthetic drugs, antibiotics, blood products, heparin, polypeptides (aprotinin, latex, and protamine), intra- vascular volume expanders, and other foreign substances that have the potential to produce life-threatening allergic reactions termed "anaphylaxis." Anesthesiolo- gists are among the few physicians who personally administer parenteral agents, and they need to be able to manage the acute cardiopulmonary dysfunction that may follow. The term anaphylaxis was first coined by Richet and Portier over a century ago (ana—against, phylaxis—protection) to describe the marked shock and resulting death that sometimes occurred in animals immediately after a second chal- lenge with a foreign substance called an antigen.1