Cardiovascular disease

This chapter describes the anaesthetic management of the patient with cardiovascular disease. The topics include ischaemic heart disease (including perioperative myocardial infarction and percutaneous coronary intervention), valvular heart disease (incuding prosthetic valves), congenital heart disease, cardiomyopathy, pericardial disease, the patient with a transplanted heart, narrow complex arrhythmias, broad complex arrhythmias and heart block. For each topic, pre-operative investigation and optimisation, treatment, and anaesthetic management are described including peri-operative management of pre-existing arrhythmias (such as atrial fibrillation), and the patient with an implanted pacemaker or defibrillator.