[Preoperative vascular loading. A guide for the management of volume expansion in the surgery of pheochromocytoma].

The most acurate fluid replacement is needed for the operative management of patients with pheochromocytoma. Pulmonary capillary wedge pressure monitoring must be incorporated into routine practice for assessing left ventricular filling pressure because discrepancies between central venous pressure and left-sided filling pressure may occur, even in patients apparently free of cardiopulmonary dysfunction. The response to preoperative acute volume loading was used in 11 patients--to detect preoperatively patients in whom fluid infusion was associated with a dangerous increase in pulmonary wedge pressure without improvement in forward flow and--to provide a guide for intraoperative volume replacement. This method confirmed informations suspected from baseline pressure data in one patient: distorsion between right and left ventricular filling pressures. Furthermore it showed an unsuspected ventricular dysfunction in a second patient with normal baseline pulmonary capillary wedge pressure. Both volume and speed of operative fluid challenge were adapted to this preoperative ventricular response.