Management of anesthesia with artificial pancreas STG-22™ for pheochromocytoma resection

A 74-year-old woman underwent radical nephrectomy for an adrenaline predominant pheochromocytoma in the left adrenal gland. She was pretreated with doxazosin for 3 weeks before surgery. Anesthesia was induced with intravenous fentanyl, midazolam and vecuronium, and inhaled sevoflurane in oxygen. A central venous catheter was inserted into the right internal jugular vein and a PiCCO™ catheter was inserted into the femoral artery for the monitoring of cardiac function and hemodynamics. In addition, continuous monitoring and automatic control of blood glucose were started using STG-22. Target concentration of blood glucose was set at 120-140 mg-dl ^-1. Anesthesia was maintained with sevoflurane and remifentanil. Prostaglandin E ₁ nitroglycerin and dexmedetomidine were infused continuously from the start of surgery, and the systolic blood pressure was kept within 120-160 mmHg. During surgical manipulation around the tumor, there were sudden increases in blood pressure, heart rate and blood glucose concentration. Thus, phentolamine and landiolol were also administered to control blood pressure and heart rate. On the contrary, after the tumor removal, noradrenaline, dobutamine and milrinone were required to maintain blood pressure. The STG-22 worked well to maintain blood glucose concentrations during surgery without any hyper- and hypoglycemic events.