Anesthesia for patients with cardiac disease.

The entire spectrum of cardiac disease may be seen in patients who are in need of plastic surgical procedures. To conduct the patient safely through the perioperative period, the anesthesiologist and surgeon must carefully evaluate each patient preoperatively and understand the pathophysiology of the cardiac disease. In this article the preoperative evaluation and anesthetic and postoperative considerations for plastic surgical patients with four types of cardiac disease (congenital heart disease, coronary artery disease, valvular cardiac disease, and congestive cardiomyopathy) are discussed.