Anesthesia for a Patient with Myotonic Dystrophy

Myotonic dystrophy is the most common myotonic syndrome causing abnormalities of the skeletal and smooth muscles as well as problems related to the cardiac, gastrointestinal and endocrine systems. In affected people, reduced functional residual capacity, vital capacity, and peak inspiratory pressure are observed within the respiratory system. As would be expected, anesthetic management of these patients is challenging for anesthesiologists. In addition, delayed recovery from anesthesia and cardiac and pulmonary complications may develop in the intraoperative and early postoperative periods due to sensitivity to sedatives, anesthetic agents, and neuromuscular blocking agents. Myotonic dystrophy can be performed with the use of appropriate anesthesia procedures as well as carefully communication between anesthesiologists and surgeons. In conclusion, myotonic dystrophy has variations, which makes it important to preoperatively determine specific surgical and anesthetic management strategies for each patient. In this article, we present a patient with myotonic dystrophy who underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery for symptomatic cholelithiasis and to discuss the relevant literature.