[Anesthetic management of a patient with polyarteritis nodosa who suddenly developed cardiac rupture after valve replacement].

We recently encountered a patient with mitral insufficiency, accompanied by PN (polyarteritis nodosa), who developed a cardiac rupture immediately after a mitral valve replacement. The patient was a 60-year-old woman. After she was diagnosed as having mitral stenosis and insufficiency in 1968, the patient developed congestive heart failure and underwent repeated hospital admissions and discharges. In 1989, she was diagnosed as having PN and began to receive a high-dose steroid therapy (prednisolone; total dose 5245 mg). Because of transient brain ischemia and exacerbation of the symptoms of heart failure, the patient underwent mitral valve replacement on December 19, 1991. For anesthesia, oxygen, fentanyl, midazolam and vecuronium were administered. During surgery, catecholamine, nitroglycerin and prostaglandin E1 were continuously infused intravenously. The patient was weaned smoothly from the cardiopulmonary bypass. The operation was completed in about 6 hours. Her postoperative course was satisfactory until she suddenly developed left ventricular rupture and died 6 hours after surgery. The rupture seemed to be attributable to a weakening of the myocardial wall following long-term, high-dose steroid therapy, and to myocardial degeneration caused by PN-associated necrotizing vasculitis of myocardial arterioles.