[Anesthesia for surgical specialties in Catalonia, Spain, during 2003]

The aim of this arm of the ANESCAT study was to analyze the characteristics of patients who underwent anesthesia for surgical procedures in Catalonia, Spain, in 2003.

Based on data obtained from the survey undertaken in 131 hospitals, we describe the anesthesia practice associated with surgical specialties, excluding anesthesia performed for obstetric and nonsurgical procedures. Data are provided for all surgical procedures and for each surgical specialty separately. The results are expressed as medians (10th-90th percentile).

Surgical anesthesia represented 78.4% of anesthesia practice, corresponding to an estimated 472,857 anesthetic procedures per year. The most common surgical specialties associated with anesthetic procedures were orthopedics and traumatology (23.8%), ophthalmology (20.2%), general and digestive surgery (18.9%), and gynecology (9.7%). The median duration of anesthesia was 60 (25-165) minutes. The physical status of the patients according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification was as follows: ASA 1, 37.9%; ASA 2, 32.5%; ASA 3, 23.9%; and ASA 4 or higher, 5.7%. The median age of the patients was 52 (21-78) years. Ambulatory procedures accounted for 33.6% of the total, and 9.2% of patients were admitted to postoperative critical care units. The most common procedure was cataract extraction (estimated 76,963 cases) followed by inguinal herniorrhaphy (23,315). Public hospitals performed 74.4% of all anesthetic procedures. Ophthalmology and plastic surgery were the most common procedures requiring anesthesia in private hospitals.

Three out of 4 anesthetic procedures performed in Catalonia in 2003 was for surgery, 1 in 3 of those procedures was ambulatory, and almost 1 in 10 patients required postoperative critical care.