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Rhabdomyolysis in an obese patient after total knee arthroplasty.

Karcher C, Dieterich HJ, Schroeder TH

Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Tübingen University Hospital, Tübingen, Germany.

We report the case of a morbidly obese patient who developed rhabdomyolysis with acute renal failure, hepatic dysfunction, and an increase of cardiac troponin-1 after total knee arthroplasty. Postoperative rhabdomyolysis has a wide range of triggers and differential diagnoses that should be considered by the anaesthesiologist and surgeons. We would like to emphasize that morbidly obese patients have an increased risk of developing postoperative rhabdomyolysis potentially leading to life-threatening disease. Intensified postoperative observation seem justified in these patients.

Published 13 November 2006 in Br J Anaesth, 97(6): 822-4.
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