| Abstrakt: |
Epidural anaesthesia-analgesia (EAA) is a technique employed commonly in human anaesthesia to provide optimum conditions for invasive orthopaedic and soft tissue surgery. Its current use in veterinary practice is comparatively less frequent. Cited reasons for its limited use include lack of confidence in performing the procedure, limited information on the benefits, and limited information on potential complications. The EAA technique, while initially challenging, is an acquirable skill with limited equipment requirements. Use of EAA reduces the degree of surgical stimulation perceived by the patient; this reduction in painful stimulus reduces the required depth of anaesthesia and reduces the quantity of analgesia needed to provide stable anaesthesia. The side-effects of anaesthesia are, as a result, also reduced. In addition to stable intraoperative anaesthesia, EAA provides postoperative patient comfort, which directly reduces systemic analgesia requirements and thus length of hospitalisation. Furthermore, improvement in wound healing and attenuation of cancer progression are reported benefits of EAA. Epidural anaesthesia-analgesia is a minimally invasive technique, despite which number of complications may occur; however, these events are treatable and should not prevent clinicians from incorporating EAA in their perioperative pain management plans. The purpose of this review is to explain the technique, detail the considerations surrounding the practice and summarise the complications reported to date in the literature. |
