Heart attack after anesthesia

[Birdy2]

I had a patient who was needing surgery to scrape the lungs because he had empyema that wouldn't resolve with other treatments. He also needed stents and CABG. the doctors were trying to decide if it was even safe to do the surgery. They said that he had to have tHE lungs scraped first, but another doctor was saying he needed the stents more. They were concerned that he would have a heart attack when waking up from anesthesia and so thought it would be best to do the surgeries all at once. I'm trying to understand why a heart attack would occur when waking up. Is it because the stress causes inflammation and could cause a clot

to form on plaque? Or because the blood pressure and heart rate increase? Can someone help explain this to me better? I feel like I should know this, but obviously I've forgotten some things

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

You may find this of assistance: Medscape: Medscape Access

[Birdy2]

Thank you!

[Skip219, BSN, RN]

Heart attack is a common complication of general anesthesia. There are changes in blood pressure and perfusion during induction of GA. Patients are commonly taken off plavix or other platelet modifying medications. Also, cardiac patients have multiple unstable plaque ready to rupture if homeostasis upset.