Factors Associated With Failed Spinal Anesthesia for Cesarean Delivery, a Retrospective Case-control Study

Spinal anaesthesia is the anaesthetic technique of choice of patients undergoing cesarean delivery due to its rapid onset, good reliability and good efficacy. However, the inadequate or failed spinal anaesthesia can occur. The previous literatures revealed incidence of failed spinal anaesthesia was as high as 0.5-6%. Failure of spinal anaesthesia leads to numerous maternal and neonatal consequences. Those failed spinal anaesthesia patients required general anaesthesia with endotracheal tube which may cause several complications such as hypoxia, difficult intubation, failed intubation and pulmonary aspiration. Also, a recent network meta-analysis showed general anaesthesia decreasing neonatal Apgar score.

The factors that associated with failed spinal anaesthesia in cesarean delivery has been studied. The amount of local anaesthetic, needle type, patients' body mass index (obesity), and experiences of the anaesthetist performing spinal block influenced the failure of spinal anaesthesia. The details and factors of failed spinal anaesthesia in our hospital was scarce. It has not yet been published in the literature.

Therefore, the aim of this study is to reveal the factor associated with failed spinal anaesthesia in cesarean delivery. We conduct the retrospective case-control study to elucidate the involving factors.