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Health professionals have been known to override patients' advance directives. The most ethically problematic instances involve a directive's explicitly forbidding the administration of some life-prolonging treatment like resuscitation or intubation with artificial ventilation. Sometimes the code team is unaware of the directive, but in other instances, the override is done knowingly and intentionally with clinicians later pleading that it was done "in the patient's best interests." This article surveys a twenty-year period extending back to 1997 when ethicists began to question the legitimacy of overriding advance directives despite clinicians believing they had compelling reasons to do so. A legal and ethical analysis of advance directive overrides is provided as no court to date has awarded damages to plaintiffs who alleged their loved one suffered "wrongful life" following a successful life-prolonging intervention. A hypothetical scenario is especially discussed wherein a patient's DNR status is overridden because her cardiac arrest was caused by error whose effects might be reversible. The authors conclude with a strategy for mitigating certain vagaries associated with overriding advance directives, but suggest that until courts provide clinicians with clear guidelines and protections, violations of patients' advance directives are likely to continue.In 1997, physicians David Casarett and Lainie Ross authored a "Sounding Board" article in The New England Journal of Medicine. They imagined "a 69-year-old man with metastatic lung cancer who is undergoing chemotherapy. He is admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and requests a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. He suffers a cardiac arrest due to an anaphylactic reaction to an

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Interactions between the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are complex and profound. General anesthesia, muscle relaxation, and positive-pressure ventilation all impose physiological effects on cardiovascular function. In patients presenting for pulmonary resection, additional effects resulting from positioning, 1-lung ventilation, surgical procedures, and contraction of the pulmonary vascular bed may impose an additional physiological burden. For most patients with adequate pulmonary and cardiovascular reserve, these effects are well tolerated. However, the cardiothoracic anesthesiologist may be asked to provide anesthetic care for patients with significantly reduced cardiac function who require potentially curative pulmonary resection for lung cancer. These patients present a major perioperative challenge and a thoughtful approach to intraoperative management is required. The authors review a case of a patient with severely impaired biventricular function who presented for elective pulmonary lobectomy in an attempt to effect a curative resection of lung cancer and present a discussion of physiological and pathophysiological considerations for clinical management.

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Carcinoid heart disease is a rare form of heart disease due to secretion of vasoactive compounds, including serotonin, from gastrointestinal tumors. This E-challenge examines the case of a patient with advanced carcinoid heart disease who presented to the operating room (OR) for a tricuspid valve replacement. Once the patient was in the OR, intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography was used to discover a patent foramen ovale and involvement of all 4 valves with regurgitant lesions. The patient underwent tricuspid valve replacement, pulmonic valve replacement, right ventricular outflow tract reconstruction, and patent foramen closure in the OR and experienced subsequent fulminant right heart failure. Mechanical circulatory support was required to separate the patient from cardiopulmonary bypass, which was first attempted with an intra-aortic balloon pump and subsequently achieved with implantation of a right ventricular assist device. Multiple reports of acute right heart failure are available in the literature; however, this case helps illustrate several important considerations for the anesthesiologist. The effects of chronic circulating vasoactive compounds on the heart valves are well documented; however, it is likely that advanced carcinoid heart disease also will trigger pre-existing myocardial dysfunction, which may be underappreciated. Identifying patients who are at high risk for intraoperative right heart failure and considering what constitutes an adequate preoperative assessment of right heart function aid in preparing for OR management. In addition, reviewing the potential options for managing these patients when the traditional therapies are inadequate, including mechanical support and extracorporeal circulation, is a useful exercise in preparation. This case also highlights the contributions of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography in the diagnosis and management of carcinoid heart disease, the need for additional preoperative optimization of these patients, and the management and potential complications of mechanical support.