Refractory Hypotension after Tourniquet Deflation in a Patient on Chronic Clomipramine Therapy

oleh: Pradeep Govil, P. N. Kakar, Atul Kishore Kapoor, Ankit Sharma, Deepak Govil, Deep Arora

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2008-01-01

Deskripsi

Treatment of intraoperative hypotension in a patient on chronic tricyclic antidepressant therapy(TCA) is contro-versial. Evidence based guidelines for the management of psychotropic drugs during perioperative period are lacking. We present a patient who was subjected to bilateral total knee replacement under combined spinal epidural anaesthe-sia. She developed refractory hypotension after release of tourniquet and responded only to large dosage of norepi-nephrine along with acid base correction. We believe that chronic TCA therapy led to depleted catecholamine re-serves and down regulation of its receptors. Release of tourniquet led to metabolic acidosis and subsequently in-creased free clomipramine concentration in blood leading to severe refractory hypotension.