Intraspinal narcotic anesthesia in open heart surgery.

Intraspinal narcotic anesthesia was performed in 180 open heart surgery patients. 0.1 mg/Kg of morphine or 1.5 mg/Kg of meperidine was administered as the primary anesthetic in the subarachnoid space using the barbotage technique. Of the 180 patients scheduled for open heart surgery, morphine was administered to 95 patients, meperidine to 55 and a mixture of morphine and meperidine to 30 patients. From a clinical point of view, there were no significant cardiovascular problems, however, respiratory depression seemed to be most serious after morphine administration. Mild complications such as pruritus (11.1%), voiding difficulty (10.6%), intraoperative awareness (4.4%) and spinal headache were observed, however these were mild, not major clinical problems and were acceptable. Postoperative analgesic effect and respiratory controllability were excellent.