General Anesthesia versus Local Anesthesia for Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson's Disease: A Meta-Analysis

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) implantation under general anesthesia (GA) is of great importance for patients with disabling off-medication symptoms or medical comorbidities. However, the relative advantages/disadvantages of routine local anesthesia (LA) surgery versus GA regarding clinical outcomes are controversial, and the safety of DBS implantation under GA is debatable.

We systematically reviewed the literature to compare the efficacy and safety of awake and asleep DBS surgery. We identified cohort studies from the Cochrane library, MEDLINE, and EMBASE (January 1970 to August 2019) by using Review Manager 5.3 software to conduct a meta-analysis following the PRISMA guidelines. Fourteen cohort studies involving 1,523 patients were included. The meta-analysis results showed that there were no significant differences between the GA and LA groups in UPDRSIII score improvement (standard mean difference [SMD] 0.06; 95% CI -0.16 to 0.28; p = 0.60), postoperative LEDD requirement (SMD -0.17; 95% CI -0.44 to 0.12; p = 0.23), or operation time (SMD 0.18; 95% CI -0.31 to 0.67; p = 0.47). Additionally, there was no significant difference in the incidence of adverse events (OR 0.98; 95% CI 0.53-1.80; p = 0.94), including postoperative speech disturbance and intracranial hemorrhage. However, the volume of intracranial air was significantly lower in the GA group than that in the LA group. In a subgroup analysis, there was no significant difference in clinical efficacy between the microelectrode recording (MER) and non-MER groups. We demonstrated equivalent clinical outcomes of DBS surgery between GA and LA in terms of improvement of symptoms and the incidence of adverse events. Key Messages: MER might not be necessary for DBS implantation. For patients who cannot tolerate DBS surgery while being awake, GA should be an appropriate alternative.