Perioperative blood pressure management with clevidipine during coiling of cerebral artery aneurysms

The tight control of blood pressure (BP) is mandatory during cerebral aneurysm coiling to minimize abrupt changes in the transmural pressure across the aneurysm and thereby decrease the risk of rupture. Critical times during these procedures when significant BP changes may occur include anesthetic induction, endotracheal intubation, and emergence. Clevidipine is a recently introduced, rapidly acting dihydropyridine calcium channel antagonist. Its rapid metabolism by tissue and plasma esterases results in an effective half-life of 1 to 3 minutes. We present our preliminary experience with the use of clevidipine to control BP during the anesthetic care of three patients undergoing coiling of cerebral aneurysms in the interventional radiology suite.