“What are the risks of anesthesia for a patient suffering from COPD?”

Patients with pulmonary disease have an increased risk of pulmonary complications postop. Speak to your anesthesiologist physician about his specific risks

Patients with COPD who receive general anesthesia are prone to have excessive coughing and clearing of secretions in the recovery room.

There are risks which we are familiar with and treat as necessary

Yes, he is at increased risk under anesthesia. Anesthesia decreases the respiratory drive, making the patient breathe slower and take more shallow breaths. This can cause less oxygen to get into the blood. Low oxygen can stress all of the body's organs, especially the heart. With COPD, your father already has a stressed respiratory system.

It's not so much recovery as it is higher risk during the procedure. However, bronchoscopy is a quite routine procedure and an anesthesiologist is well trained to manage potential copd complications.

Boris Yaguda, M.D.

Hello,

Most of the bronchoscopies we perform are with intravenous sedation. The risk arises with how well the patient is oxygenating prior to the procedure. If the patient is not oxygenating well, then the causes would need to be identified and evaluated, is it just the COPD, or are there secretions associated with it, pneumonia, bad heart, bronchospasm, etc... Each factor is evaluated and optimized for maximum oxygenation and good outcome. Becoming intubated may be the risk of poor oxygenation and poor breathing effort if the procedure can not be done with sedation.

Dr Ketch

To be honest it depends on a lot of factors. How extreme is your father’s copd? What type of anesthesia will be used to allow the pulmonologist to do his/her part of the procedure. Having said that, I’ve provided sedation (with propofol) to many patients with copd (All with varying degrees of pathology.) all without any morbid sequale. I would advise you to ask the pulmonologist/intensivist how long he expects the procedure to take and what type of anesthesia is usually administered given the condition of your father. You’ll get a clearer picture if he’’’ be at higher risk for recovery.

Consultation with a physician anesthesiologist should be requested before the day of the procedure. COPD can be a minor or a major problem, which is why you will want to be sure that he is evaluated by a physician anesthesiologist before his bronchoscopy. Physician anesthesiologists can diagnose the severity of COPD and make sure that he is "optimized" before administering general anesthesia. General anesthesia is usually used for bronchoscopy because the airway reflexes (like coughing) need to be suppressed, and the patient
needs to be still during the procedure.

Your questions about the possible after-effects of general anesthesia can be answered by the anesthesiologist. In general, the older the patient, the more medical problems they have (high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.), the more risk there is for after-effects from a general anesthesia. Older patients can have several days of depressed mental acuity after a general anesthetic, which is why he will be advised not to drive for at least 24 hours after an anesthetic, and maybe longer if he is required to take new medications (like pain relievers) after the anesthetic.