[Subendocardial infarction on recovery from anesthesia].

A 57-year-old man without any history of coronary artery disease underwent total hip replacement for which a continuous lumbar epidural analgesia combined with general anesthesia was used. During the recovery from anesthesia, the patient developed sudden hypotension and ventricular fibrillation (Vf), followed by ST elevation (I, II, III, aVF and V2-V6) on ECG. A coronary angiography, which was performed 30 min after the onset of Vf, revealed both the total occlusion of proximal left anterior descending artery (LAD) and 25% stenosis of proximal right coronary artery. It seemed that coronary artery spasm had occurred during the emergence from anesthesia, and then the coronary spasm ceased in a minute or two, while thrombus was produced in proximal LAD. The patient recovered from the episode of myocardial ischemia after percutaneous transluminal coronary recanalization and intraaortic balloon pumping. This patient was operated again on 4th and 8th postoperative days uneventfully under general anesthesia (enflurane and nitrous oxide in oxygen).