• Yasuhiro Maehara, Atsuko Matsuya, Shoji Kawachi, Yuka Osaki, Yohei Suzuki, Masaki Sato, and Mariko Baba.
• Department of Anesthesia, International Medical Center of Japan, Tokyo 162-8655.
• Masui. 2008 Oct 1;57(10):1287-92.

BackgroundAs the number of HIV-infected patients in Japan increases every year, the opportunity for a HIV-positive patient to undergo an operation is also increasing.MethodsAuthors sent questionnaire to 952 anesthesia teaching hospitals, in order to investigate the experience and management of the HIV-positive anesthetic cases.ResultsThe reply was obtained from 480 teaching hospitals. One hundred and nine hospitals (22.7%) experienced HIV-positive operation, 367 hospitals (76.5%) had no experience. With regard to the number of experienced HIV-positive cases, only one case was the most numerous answer and most of the hospitals had fewer than ten cases. General anesthesia was selected in 74% of cases, regional anesthesia (spinal or/and epidural anesthesia) were selected in 26% of cases. Preoperative HIV examination for almost all scheduled cases were carried out in 24% of the hospitals, but 23% of the hospitals did not carry out the examination at all. Eighteen percent of the hospitals had a severe rule for the management of a HIV-positive case, and 58% of the hospitals had a rule almost the same as for HBV-HCV positive cases.ConclusionsAlmost one fourth of anesthesia teaching hospitals experienced HIV-positive cases. Anesthesiologists should know how to manage HIV-positive surgical patients and be prepared for the cases.

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