BACKGROUND Anesthesia and inflammatory response have been studied in major abdominal and thoracic surgical procedures, but not in major orthopaedic reconstructive procedures such as total knee arthroplasty. Most studies have compared general anesthesia with epidural anesthesia, but none has compared epidural with spinal. MATERIAL/METHODS In a prospective randomized study, 2 groups of patients...

BACKGROUND Simultaneous administration of epidural local anesthetic agents (LA) and general anesthetics (intravenous or inhaled) is a common procedure in patients undergoing major operations. The effects of epidural anesthesia during combined general-epidural anesthesia on the alertness level (CGEA) in the awake phase and the doses of anesthetics have been reported. OBJECTIVES The present stu...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Epidural anesthesia decreases the core temperatures triggering vasoconstriction and shivering, presumably by increasing apparent (as opposed to actual) lower-body temperature. We therefore tested the hypothesis that epidural anesthesia also increases the overall perception of warmth. METHODS We studied 8 volunteers in a randomized, cross-over protocol separated by at...

BACKGROUND Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD) is a standard technique for the treatment of lumbar disc hernia. Thus far, most surgeons have recommended local anesthesia. However, in clinical practice, some patients experience pain and are unable to cooperate with the surgery during intervertebral foramen hemp expansion. The use of general anesthesia may create a greater risk of co...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Caudal epidural anesthesia is the most popular regional anesthesia technique used in children. With advanced age, only the relative difficulty in localizing the sacral hiatus limits its use. However, in adults this technique has been widely used to control chronic pain by adjuvant use of fluoroscopy. Thus, the ability to locate the hiatus and define anatomical variatio...

In principle, the combination of two different administration of anesthesia routes on the same patient improves effectiveness and reduces side effects (Stevens and Edwards, 1999) [B]: Spinal anesthesia provides fast and reliable segmental anesthesia with minimal risk for toxicity, while epidural anesthesia provides perioperative anesthesia (alone or in combination with general anesthesia), foll...

OBJECTIVE To observe the change of PVI after thoracic epidural block on the basis of general anesthesia. METHODS In 26 patients undergoing elective upper abdominal operations, changes of SVI, PVI, SVV, PPV and CVP were monitored immediately before and 10 minutes after T8-9 thoracic epidural anesthesia on the basis of general anesthesia. The definition was that patients with ΔSVI greater than ...

BACKGROUND Current evidences show that regional anesthesia is associated with decreased risk of complications after major surgery. However, the effects of combined regional-general anesthesia remain controversial. The purpose of our study was to analyze the impact of anesthesia (combined epidural-general anesthesia vs. general anesthesia) on the risk of postoperative complications in patients u...

BACKGROUND Epidural anesthesia is widely used to provide pain relief, whether for surgical anesthesia, postoperative analgesia, treatment of chronic pain, or to facilitate painless childbirth. In many cases, however, the epidural catheter is inserted blindly and the indwelling catheter position is almost always uncertain. METHODS In this study, the loss-of-resistance technique was used and an...

BACKGROUND In this study, lidocaine concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) at different interspaces were measured with or without preceding spinal anesthesia, 10 min after epidural injection of lidocaine, to investigate the effects of preceding meningeal puncture on CSF concentrations of epidurally administered local anesthetic. METHODS Sixty patients scheduled to receive combined spinal...