Comparison of general anaesthesia versus spinal anaesthesia on perioperative outcomes in lumbar spine surgery: A retrospective study.

Anaesthesia for lumbar spine surgery only general anaesthesia (GA) flashes in anaesthesiologists mind. However now this immutable fact has been challenged by recent literature which places spinal anaesthesia (SA) noninferior to GA for lumbar spine surgery. Predilection for GA in lumbar spine surgery thought to be not just anaesthesiologists and surgeons prejudice but also of patients which cannot be supported by evidences. Spine surgery has undergone a paradigm shift in recent times with the introduction of minimally invasive spine surgery which are of less duration and have better surgical outcome.Anaesthesia for these surgeries are also undergoing fundamental changes from GA to SA with the backing of recent evidence. It has been found that SA may be more advantageous in terms of perioperative hemodynamics, postoperative nausea vomiting (PONV), length of hospital stay and operation cost.

However there appears to be conflicting evidence regarding superiority of SA over GA as few studies have found SA associated with more intraoperative hypotension ,cough , hiccup etc. The purpose of this retrospective study is to compare the perioperative and postoperative outcome between SA and GA among the patients who had undergone lumbar spine surgery.