[Cardiovascular effects of anesthesia. Management of cardiovascular therapy during the perioperative period].

General anesthesia changes circulatory haemodynamics in three ways: a decrease in sympathetic tone, a decrease in VO2, and a change in baroreceptor reflex function. These effects may have important consequences in patients with cardiovascular disease whose stability depends on these different factors. In addition, the anaesthesia should be adapted to the intensity of the surgical stimuli which tend to increase sympathetic activity, produce tachycardia and increase the blood pressure which may cause decompensation of some cardiac diseases (coronary artery disease for example). Drugs used in the treatment of cardiac disease may interfere with anaesthesia but they are usually continued in order to operate patients under stable cardiovascular conditions.