Retrospective evaluation of anesthesia approaches for lumbar disc surgery

Abstract

Objective: Lumbar spinal surgeries have been performed with either spinal or general anesthesia. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the superiority of either spinal or general anesthesia on one-level lumbar discectomies. Methods: After approval of Ethics Committee, we retrospectively analysed 328 patients those administered either spinal or general anesthesia for elective one-level lumbar discectomies over a two-year period. Patient records were reviewed to obtain demographic features, type of anesthesia, baseline heart rate, mean arterial pressure, intraoperative maximum heart rate and mean arterial pressure, duration in the operating room, amount of intravenous fluids, estimated blood loss, incidence of perioperative complications such as bleeding, nauseavomiting, hypotension and bradycardia, and postoperative analgesic consumption. Results: Patient characteristics including baseline/intraoperative mean arterial pressure and heart rate values did not differ between groups. However, the spinal anesthesia group experienced significantly shorter durations in the operating room and had a lower incidence of nausea-vomiting (p = 0.002 and p < 0.01, respectively). Analgesic comsumption in general anesthesia group was significantly higher than in spinal anesthesia group (p < 0.01). Conclusion: The present study revealed that spinal anesthesia is an effective alternative to general anesthesia in lumbar spinal discectomy. © 2014 Karaman S, et al.