title: The effect of anaesthesia technique on caesarean section.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  When conducting a caesarean section under regional anaesthesia, either epidural anaesthesia or spinal anaesthesia can be used. Patients who underwent caesarean section in our hospital were surveyed retrospectively to confirm and compare the merits and demerits of spinal anaesthesia and epidural anaesthesia to determine the most efficient approach.
  
  
  METHODS
  Mothers meeting the American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classification system (ASA) I or II, who underwent caesarean sections at our hospital were surveyed retrospectively. The survey targeted one hundred patients each who received spinal anaesthesia and epidural anaesthesia. The time from anaesthesia to surgical incision (A to S time), entire anaesthesia time, and the usage of vasopressor and midazolam were compared according to anaesthetic approach.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The A to S time and the entire anaesthesia time of the group that underwent spinal anaesthesia were significantly short compared to the times recorded for the group who underwent epidural anaesthesia, and the use of vasopressor was more frequent in the spinal anaesthesia group because their blood pressure decline was larger.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The A to S time and the entire anaesthetic time were longer for epidural anaesthesia than for spinal anaesthesia. However, the haemodynamic change was smaller and vasopressor was hardly used in the former group. Therefore, the choice of the technical method will depend on the clinical, anaesthetic, and obstetric situation.
authors.affiliation: Young Duck Shin, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Korea.
authors.forename: Young Duck
authors.initials: YD
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Sang Hi Park, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Chungbuk National University Hospital, Korea.
authors.forename: Sang Hi
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Hyeon Tae Kim, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Chungbuk National University Hospital, Korea.
authors.forename: Hyeon Tae
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Chan Jin Park, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Chungbuk National University Hospital, Korea.
authors.forename: Chan Jin
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: Jin Hee Lee, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine Chungbuk National University Hospital, Korea.
authors.forename: Jin Hee
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Young Jin Choi, Department of Surgery, College of Medicine, Chungbuk National University, Korea.
authors.forename: Young Jin
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Choi
keywords: Anaesthesia; Caesarean section; Epidural; Spinal