Epidural anesthesia compaired to general anesthesia for lumbal spinal surgery (Voordeurstudie study).

Lumbar spinal cord surgery can be performed safely under general anesthesia (GA) or epidural anesthesia (EA). GA is mostly preferred because of greater patient and physician acceptance and the ability to perform operations of longer duration in the prone position with a safe airway. It is demonstrated that regional anesthesia reduces blood loss (1) . During EA the awake patient can self-position to avoid nerve injury of the brachial plexus and pressure necrosis especially to the face. In addition, the perioperative feed-back of the patient allows precise localisation of the involved nerve root to the surgeon and guarding against injuries. Finally, this technique provides excellent long lasting postoperative analgesia . Proposed disadvantages of EA for this surgery are the inability to immediately assess the neurological function, and affected bladder function.

The Sint Lucas Andreas Hospital has performed EA for lumbar spine surgery successfully since the early eighteis. Although the broad experience this has never been evaluated for perioperative blood loss, time of discharge from the recovery unit and the common postoperative problems such as pain, analgesic need, nausea, and vomiting.

Epidural anesthesia is superiour to general anesthesia considering pain control, blood loss, urine retention, recovery duration and general well being for the patient.

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1. Study group: epidural anesthesia;

2. Control group: general anesthesia.