Background: Knee arthroscopic surgery is a commonly performed procedure for diagnosing and treating knee joint problems. This procedure can be achieved under various types of anesthesia, general; or by applying regional anesthesia or even local. Epidural anesthesia and peripheral nerve blockage have been utilized in short procedures and provided a shorter length of hospital stay than general anesthesia in many former articles; however, spinal anesthesia including bupivacaine infusion has also offered a shorter length of hospital stay compared to general anesthesia. While the literature has not compared optimal techniques for these valid options.
Aims: This review was conducted to challenge the hypothesis: What would be of choice for local anesthesia agents (either epidural or spinal anesthesia) that would be comparable to short-acting general anesthesia agents in terms of patient satisfaction and discharge times?!
Setting and design: The review was conducted as a prospective, randomized study. Patients were randomized using a sealed envelope method to be selected to one anesthesia technique (general, epidural, or spinal anesthesia).
Materials and methods: During the period between January 2019 and December 2020, 198 patients underwent unilateral knee joint arthroscopy. Seventy-seven patients refused anesthesia randomization and opted for one option directly. One hundred and twenty-one patients were qualified for the final recruitment stage of this analysis to contribute to the anesthesia randomization and they were assigned into three groups.
Results: Demographical analysis showed no significant differences between cohorts. No major surgical or anesthetic adverse effects were reported. Anesthesia reported satisfactory for incision among three groups. For regional anesthesia cohorts, sphincteric control (voiding) considered a mandatory parameter for discharge, was shorter in the epidural group compared to the spinal anesthesia cohort (154 ± 28 vs. 189 ± 47 min, P < 0.0013). Time to discharge for the three cohorts was also significantly shorter for general anesthesia and epidural cohorts as compared to spinal cohort (general, 106 ± 29 min; epidural, 90 ± 18 min; spinal, 151 ± 48 min, P < 0.003). A total of 114 patients stated that they would select the same anesthetic method over again.
Conclusion: This review revealed that regional epidural anesthesia using 2-chloroprocaine and general anesthesia using short-acting agents were similarly successful in terms of perioperative conditions and duration of hospital stay in our center. Whereas spinal anesthesia using 10 mg of bupivacaine combined with fentanyl in the same setting lacked behind in terms of extended discharge time and showed a higher prevalence of adverse effects.
Keywords: Arthroscopy; epidural anesthesia; knee joint; spinal anesthesia.
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