Segmental thoracic spinal anesthesia versus general anesthesia for breast cancer surgery: A prospective...

Breast surgery is associated with moderate-to-severe postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting. For this, neuraxial anesthesia might be a better alternative to general anesthesia (GA), providing superior analgesia, with higher patient satisfaction and lesser incidence of nausea vomiting. This randomized-controlled open-label trial was done to compare segmental spinal and GA for breast cancer surgery.

The present study enrolled 56 female patients scheduled to undergo breast cancer surgery. They were randomly divided into two groups, group G (received standard GA) and group TS (received segmental thoracic spinal anesthesia with 0.5% isobaric levobupi vacaine at T5-T6 inter spaces). The primary objective of this study was patient satisfaction with the anesthetic technique, while secondary objectives were hemodynamic changes, perioperative complications, time of first rescue analgesic, total opioid consumption in first 24 h, and surgeon satisfaction score. Data were expressed as mean (SD) or number (%) as indicated and were compared using Chi-square, Fisher's exact, or Student's ttest as appropriate.

Patient in group TS had significantly higher satisfaction score median 5 (IQR 1) compared to patients in group G median 4 (IQR 3.5) (P = 0.0001). Nausea and vomiting were significantly higher in group G compared to group TS (P = 0.01). Mean time to rescue analgesia was 33.21 ± 7.48 min in group G as compared to 338.57 ± 40.70 in group TS and opioid consumption was also significantly lower in group TS (70.00 ± 27.38) as compared to group G (366.07 ± 59.40). There was no significant difference in hemodynamic parameters (except significantly lower heart rate at 15 min in group TS (P = 0.001) and surgeon satisfaction score between groups. Quality of postoperative analgesia was better in group TS.

Segmental thoracic spinal anesthesia technique provides better satisfaction with superior postoperative analgesia and fewer complications in patients undergoing breast cancer surgery compared to GA.