Revista brasileira de anestesiologia
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Rev Bras Anestesiol · Nov 2018
Review[Anesthetic management of endovascular treatment for acute ischemic stroke: Influences on outcome and complications].
The emerging use of endovascular therapies for acute ischemic stroke, like intra-arterial thrombectomy, compels a better understanding of the anesthetic management required and its impact in global outcomes. This article reviews the available data on the anesthetic management of endovascular treatment, comparing general anesthesia with conscious sedation, the most used modalities, in terms of anesthetic induction and procedure duration, patient mobility, occlusion location, hemodynamic parameters, outcome and safety; it also focuses on the state-of-the-art on physiologic and pharmacologic neuroprotection. ⋯ General anesthesia and conscious sedation are both safe alternatives for anesthetic management of patients submitted to endovascular thrombectomy. No anesthetic management is universally recommended and hopefully the ongoing randomized clinical trials will shed some light on the best approach; meanwhile, the choice of anesthesia should be based on the patient's individual characteristics. Regarding neuroprotection, hemodynamic stability is currently the most important strategy, as no pharmacological method has been proven effective in humans.