[Strategies of general anesthesia for cleft palate surgery in Cambodia]

Hare lip and cleft palate surgery team activities in Cambodia were launched in 1989 by a non-governmental Japanese organization, Operations Unies. The objectives of the project are to provide appropriate surgical treatment and safe general anesthesia for local patients and also to conduct technology transfer of general anesthesia and surgery to the local medical staffs. From June 1991 to January 1993, a surgery/anesthesia team was dispatched 4 times and a total of 130 patients received surgical treatments under general anesthesia. Anesthesia techniques employed included total intravenous anesthesia in 70 patients (54%) and intravenous anesthesia with 0.3-0.7% of halothane in 60 patients (46%). There were no major complications, such as airway obstruction and apnea, in the recovery room and in the ward. The reasons why we chose intravenous agents are difficulty in obtaining inhaled agents in Cambodia and lack of scavenging system in a operating room. Although halothane anesthesia with spontaneous breathing has been recommended in developing countries, total intravenous anesthesia could be one of the applicable techniques in these countries. In Cambodia, shortage of medical doctors and the absence of anesthesiologist constitute a major barrier to technology transfer in clinical anesthesia.