Pilonidal Sinus Operations Performed Under Local Anesthesia versus the General Anesthesia: Clinical Trial Study

Various methods were defined to prepare patients for the pilonidal sinus surgery including local, spinal, and general anesthesia. But there is no powerful evidence to differ these procedures. Therefore, in the current study, we compared local and general anesthesia in the pilonidal sinus surgery.

in this clinical trial (IRCT201312031786N5) study 60 patients with the pilonidal sinus disease divided to two groups of local anesthesia versus general anesthesia. For local anesthesia we used 6ml of 2% lidocaine with an epinephrine (1:200,000), 6ml of 0.5% bupivacaine, 1ml fentanyl (50μg/ml), 1ml clonidine (75μg/ml) and for general anesthesia fentanyl 1.5 μg.kg-1, thiopental 3-5 mg.kg-1, followed by the trachea intubation facilitated by atracurim 0.5 mg.kg-1 with maintenance of isoflurane 1-3% in nitrous oxygen 70% and oxygen 30%. The student t-test and Chi-square test were applied to evaluate the differences.

there were 30 patients with the mean age of 27.43±8.42 years in local anesthesia group and 30 cases with the mean age of 27.5±8.44 years underwent general anesthesia. The recovery time was significantly lower in the local anesthesia group (P=0.000). The oxygen saturation of the general anesthesia group was significantly higher at 1 and 20 minutes after the operation. The average of pain score was significantly higher in general anesthesia group at 3h and 6h after surgery (P<0.001). There were no significant differences in post-operative complications and hospital length of stay.

this investigation revealed that local anesthesia has decreased pain during 48 hours after the surgery, shorter recovery time, and the less consumption of painkillers. So, we concluded that we can consider local anesthesia as a good alternative for the general anesthesia in the pilonidal sinus surgery.