: Compared with general anesthesia , neuraxial anesthesia may reduce the 0-to-30-day mortality for patients undergoing a surgery with an intermediate-to-high cardiac risk ( level of evidence moderate ) .
BACKGROUND : This analysis summarized Cochrane review s that assess the effects of neuraxial anesthesia on perioperative rates of death , chest infections , and myocardial infa rct ion .
Spinal anaesthesia or general anaesthesia for emergency hip surgery in elderly patients.
One hundred and thirty-two elderly patients undergoing emergency hip surgery  were r and omly allocated to receive subarachnoid block ( SAB ) or general anaesthesia ( GA ) . Using the 125.I fibrinogen uptake test , deep vein thrombosis was found to occur in 17 of 37 patients in the SAB group and 30 of 39 patients in the GA group ( P 0.05 ) . Blood loss was 513 ml ( + /- SEM 44 ) in the SAB group and 714 ml ( + /- SEM 67 ) in the GA group ( P less than 0.01 ) . Hypoxaemia was present preoperatively ( mean PaO2 9.2 kPa ) . Immediately following general anaesthesia , the mean fall in PaO2 was 0.86 kPa compared with preoperative values but only 0.16 kPa following subarachnoid block ( P less than 0.01 ) . At 24 hours postoperatively the fall in PaO2 was similar in both groups and recovered only slowly during the first week . Twelve patients died , three in the SAB group and nine in the GA group . This difference in mortality was not statistically significant
: Compared with general anesthesia , neuraxial anesthesia may reduce the 0-to-30-day mortality for patients undergoing a surgery with an intermediate-to-high cardiac risk ( level of evidence moderate ) .
BACKGROUND : This analysis summarized Cochrane review s that assess the effects of neuraxial anesthesia on perioperative rates of death , chest infections , and myocardial infa rct ion .