General anesthesia with propofol for ovarian teratoma excision associated with anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor encephalitis

Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) encephalitis is an autoimmune disorder caused by production of anti-NMDAR antibodies that is often associated with ovarian teratoma and exhibits various manifestations including psychiatric symptoms, seizures, hypoventilation, and autonomic nerve instability. Patients with this disorder who receive early surgical tumor resection along with immunotherapy have better outcome than the rest of the patients. To establish an anesthetic plan, it is important to understand the pharmacological interaction between the anesthetic agents and the disabled NMDAR, because NMDAR is one of the major sites of action for commonly-used anesthetic agents. Herein, we describe two young female patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis who required surgical resection of ovarian teratoma under general anesthesia using propofol, remifentanil, and fentanyl. In both of these anesthetic courses, neither psychoneuronal modification nor autonomic instability by propofol was evident. Furthermore, propofol has been reported to suppress the effects of ketamine on the posterior cingulate cortices, which is the area of the brain concerned with psychotomimetic activity and neural damage of NMDAR antagonists. Our cases imply that propofol is safely used in patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis, although it has some pharmacological effects on NMDAR.