“Is it risky to undergo anesthesia with a common cold?”

Depends on the anesthetic. But likely yes, need to postpone.

If you are otherwise healthy, no.

Elective surgical procedures should be postponed until the patient's condition is optimized. A mild upper respiratory infection can worsen into a severe upper or lower respiratory infection, or even pneumonia, after receiving general anesthesia.

You should postpone the procedure until you no longer have the cold unless the surgery is urgent (excessive bleeding, infection,etc). The secretions from the cold in your lungs and throat may impair your ability to breathe during the anesthesia and cause complications.

Unless this is an emergency, it is best to delay the anesthetic if you have a bad cold. Obviously, it's a risk versus benefit type of circumstance. If you are bleeding uncontrollably, then we would have to work with the risk of dealing with your potential breathing issues as the risk of bleeding can be potentially worse. Having a bad cold usually means that your airway is very irritated. We worry about your breathing becoming more difficult as your lungs would react to us manipulating your airway during the anesthetic. We also worry about seeding an infection in your upper airway and increasing your chance of a lower airway infection such as a pneumonia. It's a discussion that you should have with both your surgeon and your anesthesiologist.

In this situation, you weigh the risks of each procedure. It is more risky to have anesthesia during a cold because It can make your lungs more irritable and you are more likely to have a spasm of the blood vessels in your lungs or not be able to get oxygen into the blood in your lungs. As far as a D+C, if you have retained tissue or it is bleeding or is infected, you are at risk. It is up to your anesthesiologist and gynecologist to decide which is the least risky action.

You should postpone your procedure if you are having a fever over 100 and/or cough bringing up sputum or very frequent in nature.

Hope that helps.

If the d&c is elective, it would be safer to postpone the procedure a few weeks to reduce the irritability of the airways.

Most likely. This sounds like an elective procedure, wait until you feel better!

There are several questions the anesthesia provider will want to know. Do you have a fever? Productive or non-productive cough? Sputum production? They will also want to listen to your heart and lungs before making a decision. Are you short of breath? In general, it is not risky to undergo general anesthesia with a common cold. Your symptoms may worsen if an inhaled anesthetic is used. Typically, if you start off with a scratchy throat, it may worsen. This may be partially due to the laryngeal mask airway, supraglottic device, or endotracheal tube which may be used to secure your airway. The anesthetic gases are also very dry, and this is particularly responsible for the dry throat afterwards. In large pediatric
studies, researchers looked at many thousands of cases where children undergoing minor procedures had an upper respiratory infection (URI). The issue was that if you cancelled these cases, at great inconvenience and cost to everyone involved, and then brought the child back in a couple of weeks there was still a large number who had another cold or still had symptoms. They looked at the rates of serious complications with anesthesia and found that they were not changed by going ahead rather than rescheduling. There was an increase in throat irritation and minor symptoms. You may want to speak with your surgeon and or the anesthesia team to determine if your 'bad' cold is bad enough to warrant postponing the procedure.

A cold can increase the risk of anesthesia particularly if there is a fever and coughing with mucous production. If it is an elective procedure postpone for2 weeks following resolution of symptoms.

Dr Ketch