Malignant Hyperthermia and planned surgery.

[Mechavivzilla]

Does anyone have any experience with Malignant Hyperthermia and a routine planned surgery?

My mother has been diagnosed with this after a muscle biopsy. In this country there is a wait list of at least two years for the test. After a bout of pancreatitus in May I am on the urgent list to have my gallbladder removed. I thought my operation was booked and going ahead in three weeks, however after seeing the anestheologist today he had said they would prefer to test me for this first. I feel like the rug has really been pulled out from under me.

My understanding also was that there was a strong possibility of false negatives from the biopsy test so whatever the results I would be treated as Malignant Hyperthermia positive.

Anyone's experiences or advice would be really gratefully recieved.

Is there any way to speed up the biopsy eg by going privately? On the other hand, if they are going to treat you as a positive whatever the result, what's the point in having the test? Doesn't seem very logical... Can you argue the case for bringing forward the biopsy on the grounds that another bout of pancreatic could be very serious for you and you can't afford to delay surgery? Don't know how things work in your country, but if you make enough fuss, sometimes people will listen to you! Good luck..

Thank you, sadly there only seems to be one test centre in the UK that does this and they are massively over subscribed. I am going to keep asking them what is happening I think and really hope that the op goes ahead as planned!

Hi, my understanding is that the muscle biopsy test (halothane-caffeine contracture test, yes?) is about 97% sensitive ie it's pretty unlikely to get a false negative. However, yes, I would imagine that you would be treated as though you did have MH regardless of the result, so I would be asking for their rationale for delaying the operation. There are fairly clear guidelines on how to treat someone with a possible MH susceptibility, so I'm not sure how a diagnosis would really add anything to this. It may be a case of them being anxious about anaesthetising somebody with MH and trying to cover their backs a bit!!