Local Versus General Anesthesia for Carotid Endarterectomy: Report of 329 Cases

Abstract

Since stroke is an important cause of morbidity and mortality, carotid endarterectomies are used frequently to reduce the risk of stroke and death. Unfortunately, an inherent risk of the carotid endarterectomy procedure is that surgery itself may result in stroke. At this point the question is which method of anesthesia, local or general, is better to protect and monitorize the brain function during cross-clamp period in carotid endarterectomies? In the authors' center, 365 carotid endarterectomies were applied to 329 patients between 1990 and 2001; 165 operations were done under general anesthesia and the other 200 operations were done under local anesthesia. These 2 groups, general (group 1) and local anesthesia (group 11), were studied retrospectively according to preoperative and postoperative data. In group 1, the rate of major stroke was 7.3%, but this rate was 1% in group 11 (p <0.05). Intraoperative shunts were used in 50 (30.3%) operations of group 1, but the usage of shunt was 8% (16 operations) in group 11 (p< 0.000 1). The hospitalization period was also much shorter in group 11 than in group 1. The time of hospitalization was 4.1 ± 1.9 days in group I and 2.4 ± 1.1 days in group 11 (p < 0.0001). In terms of cost analysis, the mean costs were $1007.14 ± $135.71 in group I and $885.71 ± $78.57 in group 11 (p < 0.0001). In short, the local procedure was more cost-effective. As a result, in carotid endarterectomy procedures, the authors prefer local anesthesia to achieve better brain function monitoring and to reduce hospitalization time and cost.