• N Fritsch, D Tran-Van, E Dardare, A Gentile, G Deroudilhe, and B Fontaine.
• Département d'anesthésie et de réanimation, hôpital d'instruction des armées Robert-Picqué, BP 28, Bordeaux-Armées, France. lilas.fritsch@orange.fr <lilas.fritsch@orange.fr>
• Ann Fr Anesth Reanim. 2007 Sep 1; 26 (9): 795-8.

AbstractThe myxoedema coma corresponds to the ultimate evolution of a hypothyroidism and is characterized by a major deficit in thyroid hormones responsible for a collapse of the metabolism. The preventive and curative treatment is based on the administration of thyroid hormones, whose benefits are opposed to the cardiovascular risks related to an iatrogenic hyperthyroidism for patients often old with cardiopathy. We report the case of a 92-year-old patient with unbalanced hypothyroidism and chronic cardiac deficiency, who presented a myxoedema coma in the postoperative period of an urgent digestive surgery. This observation illustrates the difficulties in treating patients with unbalanced hypothyroidism following emergency surgery, in the absence of consensus on the type and the amounts of thyroid hormones substitution.

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