Open AccessThe Incidence of Transient Neurologic Symptoms After Spinal Anesthesia with Mepivacaine
Author(s) -
Jacques T. YaDeau,
Gregory A. Liguori,
Victor M. Zayas
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
anesthesia and analgesia/anesthesia and analgesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.404
H-Index - 201
eISSN - 1526-7598
pISSN - 0003-2999
DOI - 10.1213/01.ane.0000167636.94707.d3
Subject(s) - medicine , mepivacaine , anesthesia , ambulatory , anesthetic , surgery , local anesthetic
We prospectively evaluated 1273 patients who received spinal (or combined spinal-epidural [CSE]) anesthesia with 1.5% mepivacaine (plain, no glucose) for ambulatory surgery. We hypothesized that analysis of a large series of patients would confirm previous findings that isobaric 1.5% mepivacaine is not frequently associated with transient neurologic symptoms (TNS). Patients were contacted twice after the anesthetic, at days 1-4 and days 6-9. One-thousand-two-hundred-ten patients were successfully contacted postoperatively (95% follow-up rate). None of the patients had permanent neurologic sequelae from the anesthetic. None of the 372 CSE anesthetics was inadequate for surgery. Fourteen of 838 (1.7%) of the spinal anesthetics were inadequate. TNS, defined as the new onset of back pain that radiated bilaterally to buttocks or distally, occurred in 78 patients (6.4%; 95% confidence intervals 5.1%-8%). The mean age of patients who developed TNS (48 +/- 14 yr) was older than that of patients without TNS (41 +/- 16 yr) (P < 0.001). TNS was not influenced by gender or intraoperative position. The frequent success rate and infrequent rates of complications such as TNS and postdural puncture headache suggest that spinal anesthesia with mepivacaine is likely to be a safe and effective anesthetic for ambulatory patients.