Neuromuscular Blockade as a Determinant of Surgical Outcome and Post-operative Recovery, in Patients Undergoing Elective Laparoscopic Bariatric Surgery

Performing bariatric surgery as a short-stay procedure is an ongoing trend in many centers around the world. For morbidly obese (MO) patients, the anesthetic approach is based on choosing drugs that have the least potential for accumulation. This allows a more rapid and clear-headed recovery and contributes to reduced duration of perioperative time. However, when neuromuscular blockade (NMB) is required during surgery, complete recovery is a major factor that may prevent from a rapid fast-track discharge.

In Canada, reversal of NMB is achieved by using acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors, mostly neostigmine, which must be administered after a certain level of spontaneous recovery in order to ensure a complete reversal. This elongates the time spent in the operating room (OR), and prevent therefore from a fast track surgery procedure. On the other hand, in an effort to shorten the time spent in the OR, AChE inhibitors may sometime be administered too early before spontaneous recovery, and post-operative residual curarization (PORC) may then be observed. In the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU), PORC may be particularly problematic, because of the possible occurrence of critical respiratory events (CREs). This in turn is also associated with significant delayed discharges.

Because of the aforementioned inconveniences, Canadian anesthesiologists are reluctant to induce deep NMB. Consequently, intra-abdominal pressure remain non optimal during the surgery, which do not facilitate the surgeons work, in addition to increase perioperative time. This problem is particularly frequent in cases of bariatric surgeries.

The current study will explore this question from the perspective of the surgeon satisfaction and the patient quality of recovery.