Pre-operative assessment for aortic surgery

摘要

Patients presenting for aortic surgery pose significant challenges to the anaesthetist. They are often elderly with co-morbid disease and surgery is associated with significant peri-operative morbidity and mortality.Thorough pre-operative assessment will allow co-morbid conditions to be identified, quantified and where possible optimised prior to surgery. Patients can be risk stratified using this information guiding both surgical and anaesthetic technique and allowing appropriate use of scarce critical care resources. Risk stratification also leads to better informed patient consent.This article outlines currently available techniques which may be utilised in the pre-operative assessment of patients for aortic surgery.