Hypertensive crises require immediate therapy, usually by parenteral drug administration. Sublingual nifedipine has been shown to be highly effective. However, the blood pressure fall following nifedipine is frequently associated with side-effects. The use of sublingual captopril has recently been indicated in hypertensive crisis, assuming that by this route, there would be a faster absorption ...

BACKGROUND Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) can lead to significant cardiac dysfunction and is considered to be associated with an increased risk of perioperative cardiovascular complications. METHODS We reviewed the medical records of children with PAH who underwent anesthesia or sedation for noncardiac surgical procedures or cardiac catheterizations from 1999 to 2004. The incidence, ty...

BACKGROUND Hypertensive crisis (i.e., systolic blood pressure over 300 mmHg) is very rare during operation except pheochromocytoma, but it can be a fatal and embarrassing to surgeons and anesthesiologists. The right adrenal gland can be electrocauterized during a right hemi-hepatectomy. We report a case of hypertensive crisis during right hemi-hepatectomy in which the right adrenal gland was st...

Pheochromocytoma crisis is a rare life-threatening event that may appear with a variety of clinical symptoms. We present three cases of life-threatening crisis in which magnesium sulfate was particularly beneficial in controlling symptoms and signs when more conventional forms of therapy had failed. Two patients presented with hypertensive encephalopathy, and the third presented with catecholam...

Pheochromocytoma is a tumor arising from neuroectodermal chromaffin tissues in the adrenal gland or extra-adrenal paraganglia (paragangliomas). The prevalence of the tumor is 0.1%-0.6% in the hypertensive population, of which 10%-20% are malignant. Pheochromocytoma produces, stores, and secretes catecholamines, as well as leads to hypertensive crisis, arrhythmia, angina, and acute myocardial in...

Hypertension is a common chronic condition that affects approximately 78,000,000 adults within the United States [1]. Hypertensive crisis is defined as severe hypertension with a blood pressure of greater than 180/120 mmHg, and may be further classified as urgency or emergency [2,3]. Hypertensive urgency occurs in the setting of days to weeks and patients present most commonly with a headache. ...