MODERN TRENDS IN SPINAL ANAESTHESIA

It has been indicated that no other type of anaesthesia will provide so much for so little, and it is apparent that most of our fears of spinal anaesthesia are unfounded, being based upon the results obtained following its early indiscriminate use. A vast majority of the major complications have been due to the administration of toxic local anaesthetic agents, traumatic spinal needles, and inadequate and improper cleansing and sterilization of the equipment and the local anaesthetic agents used. It is also apparent that a great number of the complications which have been attributed to spinal anaesthesia in the past were actually due to other causes. Spinal anaesthesia is now well known and well understood. Its limitations have been clearly defined and the indications for its use are generally accepted, as are the physiological principles underlying its application. The great number of uncomplicated spinal anaesthetics which have been recorded during the past decade attest to the relative safety of the local anaesthetic agents themselves. It is therefore suggested that most of the significant complications of spinal anaesthesia, with the probable exception of headache, are not only preventable but also of relatively rare ocurrence following modern techniques of administration. © 1968 Canadian Anesthesiologists.