Medical & Clinical Reviews

Audit of Lumbar Spine Operations Performed Under Spinal Anaesthesia

Introduction: Spinal and epidural anaesthesia was performed in selected patients undergoing lumbar spine surgery in a private clinic. The technique will be described in detail and the results reported. Materials and methods: This study reports on patients admitted and operated upon from 1st May 2014 till 31st August 2015. We performed a retrospective review of all the patients operated in the hospital during the period and selected out those who had regional anaesthesia for audit. This study reports on patients admitted and operated between 1st May 2014 and 31st August 2015. The patients were managed at Spine Fixed in Abuja, a private clinic in Abuja, Nigeria. We performed a retrospective review of all the patients operated in the clinic during the period and selected out those who had regional anaesthesia for audit. The case notes were collected and reviewed. The demographics, operation details and short term outcome at the final clinic visit were entered into a database. The medium term outcome as related to need for another operation was determined from telephone calls to the patients made in March 2016. Results: Twenty eight out of 32 patients had simple lumbar spinal operations performed under spinal anaesthesia in the period under review. There were 12 males and 16 females with age range 24-77 years. Sixteen out of the 28 patients had one level lumbar spine decompression, while the remaining 12 had two-level spinal decompression performed. None of the patients required blood transfusion, and none of the patients had anaesthetic or surgical complications peri-operatively. There were no complications such as dural tears, nerve injuries related to the procedures though one patient vomited in the recovery room. The post-operative analgesia was maintained for over 4 hours post operatively. On review in March 2016, the patients and the surgeon were satisfied with spinal anaesthesia in all cases. Conclusion: Lumbar surgery can be performed safely under regional anaesthesia. For patients undergoing decompressive lumbar spine surgery, regional anaesthesia is an effective technique with potential advantages. In our experience, the operations were well tolerated by patients with good recovery and minimal complications. The short term outcome was also satisfactory.

Author(s):

Biodun Ogungbo, Tunde Olawoye, Caleb Bishop, Ugochukwu Joy Akudo and Peter Ebang

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