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Anesthesia for Spine Surgery

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Textbook of Neuroanesthesia and Neurocritical Care

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Abstract

Spine surgery is a common procedure performed in both elective and emergency scenarios. Over the last two decades, there have been a multitude of advances in surgical and anesthetic techniques that have improved patient safety and postoperative outcomes. The recent focus of anesthetic management for patients undergoing spine surgery is not only limited to successful perioperative assessment or intraoperative stability but also to rapid recovery and prevention of postoperative complications. In recent years, enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) programs have emerged within the specialty of spine surgery. These programs include a multidisciplinary, patient-focused approach along with multimodal analgesic strategies aimed at decreasing complications, relieving postoperative pain, and consequently hastening recovery and reducing length of stay. Although general anesthesia for spine surgery has been widely accepted, a new era of regional anesthesia brings growing evidence to supporting its use in lumbar spine surgery. Regional techniques have been associated with reduction in intraoperative blood loss, length of hospital stay, and incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting. This recent evidence has provoked further discussion of this topic, and, to date, there is still no definite answer regarding optimal anesthesia for spine surgery. This chapter serves to summarize the available evidence on management of anesthesia for patients undergoing spine surgery.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anesthesiology, Universidad del Valle, School of Medicine, Cali, Colombia

    Andres Zorrilla-Vaca

  2. Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Michael C. Grant & Marek A. Mirski

Authors
  1. Andres Zorrilla-Vaca
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  2. Michael C. Grant
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  3. Marek A. Mirski
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andres Zorrilla-Vaca .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuroanaesthesiology and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

    Hemanshu Prabhakar

  2. Division of Neuroanesthesiology, Department of Anesthesiology, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences Soura, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, India

    Zulfiqar Ali

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Zorrilla-Vaca, A., Grant, M.C., Mirski, M.A. (2019). Anesthesia for Spine Surgery. In: Prabhakar, H., Ali, Z. (eds) Textbook of Neuroanesthesia and Neurocritical Care. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3387-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3387-3_14

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  • Print ISBN: 978-981-13-3386-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-13-3387-3

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