Noncardiac Surgery in the Cardiac Patient: Assessment and Management

The stated objective of this multiple-authored text is to provide information that can be used by the referring physician and the surgeon alike. It provides guidance and intelligent treatment of patients with heart disease who face the necessity of either elective or emergency noncardiac surgery. This subject is usually dealt with much more concisely in a few pages by current standard texts of cardiovascular disease. Considerable attention is given to the use of special, noninvasive procedures, which are often available chiefly at university hospitals. These procedures include echocardiography, oculopneumoplethysmography, supraorbital Doppler examination, Doppler-flow imaging, strain-gauge plethysmography, phleborrheography, continuous-wave Doppler-flow velocity determination, pulmonary function testing, exercise testing, invasive cardiac catheterization, and His bundle studies. These are all valuable, highly specialized procedures in resolving specific problems in a definitive cardiovascular evaluation. However, it is not believed that they are frequently required by an experienced cardiologist to establish a data base before deciding