Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. May 26, 2025; 13(15): 102691
Published online May 26, 2025. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v13.i15.102691
Mitochondrial myopathy revealed postoperative acute respiratory failure: A case report
Seon Yeong Park, Sung Min Hong, Ho Young Lee, Mi-Yeong Kim, Hyun-Kyung Lee, Ji-Yeon Han, Hwa Jin Cho, Seong-Il Oh, Hongyeul Lee
Seon Yeong Park, Sung Min Hong, Ho Young Lee, Mi-Yeong Kim, Hyun-Kyung Lee, Hongyeul Lee, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Busan 47392, South Korea
Ji-Yeon Han, Depart of Radiology, Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, Busan 47392, South Korea
Hwa Jin Cho, Department of Pathology, Busan and Gyeongnam Reference Lab, Seegene Medical Foundation, Busan 48792, South Korea
Seong-Il Oh, Department of Neurology, Kyung Hee University Hospital, Seoul 02447, South Korea
Author contributions: Park SY was responsible for data collection and writing and revising the first draft of the paper; Hong SM and Lee HY were involved in the critical care of the patient; Kim MY and Lee HK were conceptualized, designed the project; Han JY, Cho HJ, and Oh SI were instrumental and responsible for data reanalysis and reinterpretation, figure plotting, and the comprehensive literature search; Lee H played an indispensable role in the experimental design, data interpretation, and manuscript preparation of the corresponding authors. All authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this report and any accompanying images.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hongyeul Lee, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Inje University Busan Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, 75 Bokji-ro, Busanjin-gu, Busan 47392, South Korea. yeurry@naver.com
Received: October 29, 2024
Revised: December 23, 2024
Accepted: January 7, 2025
Published online: May 26, 2025
Processing time: 86 Days and 1.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Mitochondrial myopathies typically present with chronic muscle weakness, and acute respiratory dysfunction is an uncommon symptom. We report the case of a 34-year-old woman who experienced postoperative hypoventilation after undergoing an uneventful administration of general anesthesia. Reports on mitochondrial myopathy-related respiratory failure in adults are limited. In this case, the patient did not exhibit typical signs and symptoms of mitochondrial myopathy and remained asymptomatic until she was exposed to a general anestheic. Mitochondrial myopathy should be considered in the differential diagnosis of postoperative respiratory failure, and the diagnosis should be confirmed with a muscle biopsy.