Local anaesthesia in middle ear surgery: survey of patients and surgeons.
The use of local anaesthesia for middle ear surgery is long established and has many advantages. However, it is only performed by a small number of UK otolaryngologists (20%). This lack of enthusiasm is due to concerns that patients may not tolerate the discomfort during the operation. Therefore, a survey was conducted on patients who had middle ear operations: stapedotomy, myringoplasty, ossiculoplasty and mastoidectomy. The intense sensation of noise during the operation (29.6% of patients) and anxiety (24%) were the most common discomforts, followed by dizziness (14.8%), backache (13.9%), claustrophobia (9.3%) and earache (1.9%). In spite of these discomforts, 89% of patients still preferred local anaesthesia to general anaesthesia for a similar procedure. The author suggests that good patient selection, pre-operative explanation and the use of appropriate sedation are the important factors for local anaesthesia ear procedures to be acceptable to patients.
Yung
M W
MW
ENT Department, Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, UK.
D000772:Anesthesia, Local; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003625:Data Collection; D004432:Ear, Middle / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007432:Intraoperative Period; D008416:Mastoid / Q000601:surgery; D009225:Myringoplasty; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D018579:Patient Selection; D013201:Stapes Surgery; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires