Assessment of surgeon performed caudal block for anorectal surgery.

BACKGROUND

The surgical anorectal diseases are common and distressful pathologies and their management mostly needs surgical intervention. Caudal anesthesia is effective in doing surgical procedures whenever the surgical area is mainly innervated by the sacral and lower lumbar nerve roots. It is used to give the local anesthesia by surgeons, in the present study the surgeon is the person who also gives the caudal anesthesia.

METHODS

202 patients (118 males vs. 84 females) were enrolled in this study with different surgical anorectal diseases. All of them were planned to be treated surgically under the effect of caudal anesthesia that was given by injection 10 ml of 2% lidocaine through sacral hiatus. All caudal anesthesia attempts were performed by the author surgeon.

RESULTS

The total success rate of caudal anesthesia performed by the surgeon was 72.2% (divided into ≅67.7% in the first year of the study, ≅72 in the second and ≅76.4% in the third year). The failed attempts were in 18.81% males vs. 8.91 females. The morbidity rate was 0.99% and the mortality rate was zero.

CONCLUSIONS

The surgeon can perform the caudal anesthesia effectively and safely. This success improved with gaining more experience. This can help partly in solving the shortage in no. of anesthetists in some developing countries.