[Anesthesia in transurethral surgery]

Transurethral resection (TUR) is a surgical operation generally performed in elderly patients, afflicted with polymorbidity and a high risk for anaesthesia. We studied 1351 transurethral resections during the years 1974-1984: 840 of these procedures were done under regional block--spinal as well as epidural--and 511 in general anaesthesia. Results and complications were related to the applied technique of anaesthesia. Considering that especially the very old patients belong to the regional anaesthesia group where general anaesthesia is known to be dangerous, the results of this study confirm definitely that regional anaesthesia is at present the most appropriate technique for TUR surgery.