Abstract
Introduction:
Spinal anesthesia rather than general anesthesia has the advantages of lower episodes of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), fewer lethal pulmonary embolisms, less postoperative cognitive dysfunction, fewer postoperative hypoxia and less cases of pneumonia. The aim of the present systematic review is to assess the evidence support use either spinal or general anesthesia in hip surgery.
Method: A search in MEDLINE databased was conducted to identify relevant, in English language, and human studies. These eligible articles were read and only studies comparing the mortality between patients underwent hip surgery under spinal and general anesthesia. The data were extracted from included studies into table and compared among all studies.
Results: Search of the literature identified total of 45 studies, after exclusion of irrelevant, duplicated and review studies, 12 studies were included in the review as they met the inclusion criteria. The mortality rates were reported in all included studies. One study measured the 90 days mortality, while another one measured the mortality after one year. Spinal anesthesia was associated with lower mortality rates than general anesthesia in 8 of the included studies, while three studies reported that general anesthesia was associated with lower mortality rates. Only one study reported no difference in the mortality rate between general and spinal anesthesia.
Conclusion: In hip surgery, spinal anesthesia is associated with better short-term outcomes when compared with general anesthesia.