Will epidural with light general anesthesia increase the incidence of awareness with recall or dream postoperatively.
BACKGROUND
The incidence of awareness with recall during general combined with epidural anesthesia has not been previously reported. The purpose of this study was to quantify the incidence.


METHODS
One hundred patients were divided into two groups. Group 1 (N = 50) received general anesthesia (GA), Group 2 (N = 50) received GA and epidural anesthesia (EA) intraoperatively. No premedication was given. These patients were induced with thiopentol (5 mg/kg) or propofol (2.0 mg/kg) and anectine (1.2 mg/kg) for smooth tracheal intubation and maintained with N2O:O2 = 1.5:1.5, and isoflurane and muscle relaxant of either pavulon or atracurium. No sedatives was given. Before anesthesia, we introduced an epidural catheter into the group 2 patients. After induction, headphones with soft music were given to the patients, in both groups, throughout the operation. 20-36 hours after operation or when the patients were fully awake, we asked the patients if they had heard anything or dreamed intraoperatively.


RESULTS
We found that not one of the one hundred patients heard anything or dreamed intraoperatively.
Liou
C M
CM
Department of Anesthesiology, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Kang
H M
HM
Lai
H C
HC
Liu
Y C
YC
Hung
C J
CJ
Wang
S J
SJ
Tso
H S
HS
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000767:Anesthesia, Epidural; D000768:Anesthesia, General; D001364:Awareness; D004325:Dreams; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D011184:Postoperative Period