Anaesthesia for Emergency Surgical Patients with Co-existing Hypertension: a Clinical Challenge
Description
This study was a retrospective audit review of anaesthetic charts, case notes and operation records of patients that were operated at the accident and emergency (A&E) theatre of a tertiary hospital in the North-West region of Nigeria over a 6 months period. Patient’s age, sex, type of surgery and anaesthetic technique were collated. Data obtained were expressed as numbers and percentages. A total number of 270 patients had emergency surgery during the study period. Males constituted 140 (51.9%) of patients. Paediatric surgery had the highest number with 88 (32.6%) of patients followed by general surgery which had 70 (25.9%) patients. Gynaecological surgery had the lowest number of 10 (3.7%) patients as shown in Table 1. Forty (14.8%) of patients operated during the period had high blood pressure (>140/90mmHg). Twelve of the hypertensive patients (30%) had urological operations followed by general surgical procedures with 11 patients (27.5%). Four patients (10%) had gynaecological surgery (Table 2). The technique of anaesthesia used for the hypertensive patients are as shown in Table 3.