Anesthetic aspect of malaria disease: A brief review

Background: Malaria has caused an estimated 190-311 million cases in year 2008 alone and around 1500 patients are diagnosed with the disease annually in the United States. Out of these numbers, few of them have presented for surgery. Malaria disease is a multi-organ systemic disease that may affect significantly patient's outcome after surgery. It is therefore prudent for the anesthesiologists, from both the endemic and non-endemic area, to understand the implication of the disease during the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative course. Methods: Google scholar, Medline and Cochrane data base search are performed using keywords malaria, anesthesia, quinine, dapsone, clindamycin, mefloquine, surgery, wound healing, cardiopulmonary bypass and obstetric. Bibliographies are systemically analyzed and grouped base on clinical presentation and potential anesthetic implication.