Aspiration pneumonia and coma--an unusual presentation of dystrophic myotonia

A tell tale handshake

Myotonic dystrophy is a group of inherited disorders called muscular dystrophies. Clinical presentation of this disease is characterised by progressive muscle weakness with myotonia, cataracts, infertility (in males) and cardiac conduction defects. We present a case of a 35 year old male with lung abscess, later diagnosed to be a case of myotonic dystrophy. Lung abscess is an uncommon presentation of this disease and has never been reported before.

Desflurane anaesthesia in myotonic dystrophy

Myotonic dystrophy (MD) is a rare genetic disorder with multisystem involvement characterised by myotonia and progressive muscle weakness and wasting. These patients pose significant challenges to the anaesthesiologist in view of the muscular and extramuscular involvement and sensitivity to anaesthetic drugs. The literature is replete with reports of postanaesthetic respiratory and cardiovascular complications in these patients. But an ideal anaesthetic technique in MD patients remains to be determined. Rapid recovery is desirable to reduce postoperative respiratory complications. Though there are a few case reports of maintenance of anaesthesia with isoflurane and sevoflurane, there are scanty reports of use of desflurane in these patients. We present successful management of a patient with MD for laparoscopic cholecystectomy using a carefully titrated desflurane-based anaesthesia and discuss the perioperative considerations.

Severe respiratory depression after epidural morphine in a patient with myotonic dystrophy

We describe a patient with myotonic dystrophy who underwent cholecystectomy, and developed severe respiratory depression following epidural administration of morphine to provide postoperative analgesia. At preoperative assessment, he demonstrated near normal vital capacity and maximal voluntary ventilation, but the presence of chronic ventilatory failure with a resting value of PaCO2 51 mmHg. Anaesthesia was produced by a combination of epidural and light general anaesthesia without intravenous anaesthetics, narcotics or neuromuscular relaxants. Five hours after epidural administration of 2 mg morphine, the patient developed severe respiratory depression with a PaCO2 of 93 mmHg. Intravenous naloxone resulted in transient improvement in minute volume, suggesting that epidural morphine was responsible for the depression. Epidural morphine can cause unexpected respiratory depression, even at a small dose, because of the sensitivity of the respiratory centre to morphine in patients with myotonic dystrophy.