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Anaesthesia for Ophthalmic Surgical Procedures


OH Onakpoya
FD Asudo
O Adeoye

Abstract

Background: Ophthalmic surgical procedures are performed under  anaesthesia to enhance comfort and cooperation of patient.
Objective: To review factors influencing the choice of anaesthesia for ophthalmic surgical procedures.
Design: Restrospective descriptive study
Setting: Eye unit of a tertiary hospital.
Subjects: All patients who had ophthalmic surgeries in the operating theatre from January 2002 to December 2009.
Results: Two hundred and ninety ophthalmic surgeries were carried out during the study period. Age range was 1-95 years and mean of 61.0±1.9; most (55%) were elderly while 4.8% were children. One hundred and fourty seven (50.7%) were males, 143(49.3%) females ; male:female of 1.03:1. Local anaesthesia was the more commonly (92.1%) employed while general anaesthesia was used in 23(7.9%) patients. General anaesthesia was used more frequently (71.4%) in children compared to other age groups; the mean age and standard error of means for patients who had general anaesthesia (27.2 /5.4 years) is smaller compared to 63.9/0.93 years for patients who had local anaesthesia (p<0.0001). Regional anaesthesia was the most frequently used for all types of procedures except for eye wall repairs in which general anaesthesia was used for 71.4% of patients (p<0.0001). General anaesthesia was indicated in seven
(41.2%) of emergency ophthalmic surgical procedures as compared to 16 (5.9%) of elective ophthalmic procedures P<0.0001.
Conclusion: General anaesthesia was more commonly employed in children, eye wall repairs and emergency ophthalmic surgical procedures.

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