Complications of Anesthesia for Ocular Surgery

Ophthalmic anesthesia is unique because ophthalmic surgery itself rarely causes unanticipated hemodynamic instability. Unlike more invasive surgery, intravascular fluid shifts, blood loss, and changes in cardiac, respiratory, hepatic, and renal function are almost never caused by the surgical procedure. Complications of anesthetic management stand alone; patients are subject to every known complication of anesthesia, magnified at times by ophthalmologic or patient demographic factors, but not caused by those factors. Ocular anesthesia complications can be