The Utility of Targeted Perioperative Transthoracic Echocardiography in Managing an Adult Patient with Anomalous Origin of the Left Coronary Artery-pulmonary Artery for Noncardiac Surgery

Congenital coronary artery anomalies as a whole are uncommon. Abnormal origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) is probably the most common congenital coronary defect. An overwhelming majority of the patients with untreated ALCAPA do not survive to adulthood. As yet, there is no consensus on the management of adults with ALCAPA. We describe a patient with breast malignancy and incidentally detected ALCAPA; primacy was given to treatment of the oncologic condition as a first step. Anesthesia management was focused on maintaining adequate collateral coronary perfusion and avoidance of excessive loading of the left ventricle. This was achieved using a simplified transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) protocol at the time of induction of anesthesia; TTE was also used to reconfirm the absence of disturbances in myocardial function at the end of surgery. We sugggest the routine use of tte in managing perioperative care in low resource settings when the underlying cardiac disease is rare and the evidence base if often insufficient.