[New short-acting local anaesthetics for spinal anaesthesia - Well-tried substances for ambulatory surgery].

More and more operative procedures are performed in an ambulatory setting. Many patients are denied spinal anaesthesia, although it provides several advantages. Innovative pharmaceutical formulations of well-tried local anaesthetics have created "new" substances that are ideal for ambulatory surgery due to their fast onset, short duration of action, and very low incidence of complications such as transient neurological symptoms (TNS). Both hyperbaric prilocaine 2% and preservative-free chloroprocaine 1% were recently approved for spinal application in Germany. Additional perioperative measures, such as the use of atraumatic, thin spinal needles (25 or 27G), restrictive volume management, and early patient mobilisation, lead to a further reduction of complications. The new S1 guideline of the German Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine encourages us anaesthetists to use spinal anaesthesia more frequently in an ambulatory setting.