[Anesthesia for cesarean section in a patient with von Hippel-Lindau disease].

We report the case of a pregnant 38-year-old woman at full-term who had a history of von Hippel-Lindau disease with neurological symptoms. She had previously undergone surgical removal of cerebellar hemangioblastomas. A cesarean delivery performed under general anesthesia was uneventful and the outcomes were excellent for both mother and fetus. General anesthesia was chosen because patients with von Hippel-Lindau disease often have asymptomatic spinal cord and intracranial involvement. As such involvement could not be ruled out, we preferred to avoid the risks related to regional anesthesia. One of the main features of von Hippel-Lindau disease is the presence of central nervous system hemangioblastomas, which are highly vascularized, slow growing tumors that may become enlarged during pregnancy. We describe the implications of the disease for anesthesia.