Is Regional Anesthesia Better than General Anesthesia?
(Originally posted 21 September 2000 on About Anesthesiology) INTRODUCTION The debate about whether regional anesthesia is better than general anesthesia in terms of morbidity and mortality continues to be a topic of great interest and fervent debate. For most people looking at this question, it seems somewhat “logical” or “a gut feeling” that regional anesthesia would be safer and better for the patient – but the scientific data has is not really present to support this conclusion. There have been some specific incidents where regional anesthesia has been shown to be of benefit – but the statement that regional is somehow better or safer than general anesthesia still cannot be made definitively. WHY IS THE DATA NOT THERE? Part of the problem with addressing this question is that differences in morbidity and mortality between any two techniques are likely very small. This is a testament to the fact that anesthesia is much safer than it ever has been before and that new developments in
