An elective total knee replacement in a patient with a recent history of cardiac arrest: A case report

Performing surgery on a patient with a previous history of a major cardiac event, such as a myocardial infarction or cardiac arrest, is inherently risky and requires specific anesthetic and surgical-related measures to avoid perioperative complications. Our patient is a 63-year-old male who is a known case of chronic knee osteoarthritis with a history of myocardial infarction leading to cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated and transferred to the catheterization laboratory and the occluded artery was stented. Within the 1 st year after the cardiac arrest, he presented to the orthopedic clinic complaining of worsening knee pain and a reduced range of movement that affected his quality of life. We performed the surgery 2 months later and the patient was discharged with satisfactory results and no complications. This case reports how we prepared a patient with a recent history of cardiac arrest for a total knee replacement from an anesthetic and surgical point of view.