Various opioids are added to local anesthetic solutions for spinal anesthesia. This may change the final density of the local anestetic (LA) mixture. This effect regarding current concepts in spinal anesthesia needs to be re-evaluated. In order to re-evaluate such effects, hyperbaric and isobaric local anesthetic (LA) solutions were mixed with opioid adjuvants (A) using the equipment available in the operating room. Ten density measurements for each composition (LA-A) were performed. The density change of 0.0006 g/mL was regarded as significant. Measured densities were also compared with theoretical values calculated using Hare's. As a result, the addition of an opioid adjuvant caused a significant reduction in the final density of the LA-A solution. In hyperbaric LA mixtures, it did not change the baricity from hyperbaric to isobaric. However, the addition of highly hypobaric fentanyl 0.99360 g/mL (SD ± 0.00004) changes all isobaric LA solutions baricity to hypobaric. The comparison of measured and theoretical densities revealed significant differences (p > 0.05). However, the absolute reduction reached 0.0006 g/mL in only two LA-A compositions. We conclude that the addition of fentanyl to isobaric LA results in a hypobaric solution that may affect the distribution of the block. The inadequacy of LA-A in a clinical setting is unlikely to influence block characteristics.
Keywords: block distribution; opioid adjuvants; spinal anesthesia.