The effect of epidural anaesthesia and size of spinal needle on post-operative hearing loss

Forty-five patients who were to undergo elective urological operations were evaluated. In the pre-operative period and on the third or fourth post-operative day audiometry was performed. Epidural anaesthesia was performed in 15 cases, spinal anaesthesia was performed in 15 cases with 25 G needles, and in 15 cases with 22 G needles. No statistically significant hearing loss was observed in the post-operative period compared to preoperative period in the epidural anaesthesia group. In the post-operative period, the hearing loss observed in the 25 G-spinal anaesthesia group was significantly (P < 0.01) less than that seen in the 22 G group. None of the patients had headache after spinal anaesthesia. It was concluded that pure tone audiometry is a more sensitive indicator of cerebrospinal fluid leakage than post-operative headache.