Pulse Wave Velocity and Hemodynamic Response During Anesthesia Induction in Hypertensive Patients

Hypertension is a disease with increasing and serious complications all over the world. In particular, the incidence of hypertension increases with advancing age. Secondary problems that can be caused by hypertension include peripheral vascular diseases, arteriosclerosis, increased risk of heart attack and stroke. It is a measurement of pulse wave velocity (PWV), a non-invasive indicator of arterial stiffness. It is known that sudden hemodynamic changes that occur during the induction of anesthesia cause undesirable intraoperative and postoperative complications. It is known that arterial stiffness, which is more common in elderly patients, causes orthostatic hypotension in particular. For this reason, more hemodynamic instability may be seen in the general anesthesia procedure in elderly patients with increased arterial stiffness.

In our study, we aimed to investigate whether the hemodynamic changes observed during anesthesia induction in hypertensive elderly patients, whom we think have a high pulse wave velocity, are different from normotensive patients.