Perioperative cardiac problems.

Cardiovascular complications of surgery--myocardial infarction (MI), chest pain, stroke, heart failure, and rhythm disturbances--are a major cause of post-operative a major cause of post-operative morbidity and mortality. Numerous studies have been conducted on postoperative MI in diverse populations, including patients with previous MI and others with coronary artery disease (CAD) who have or have not undergone coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. This review presents data from a number of these studies, which attempted to identify predictive tools and contributing factors to postoperative MI and other ischemic events. These potentially predictive methods and factors include previous MI, hemodynamic aberrations and monitoring, drug regimens, presence of CAD, CABG surgery, preoperative and intraoperative ischemia, congestive heart failure, thallium scintigraphy, and anesthesia.