Knee Arthroscopy with the Use of Local Anesthesia—An Increased Risk for Repeat Arthroscopy?

Abstract

Although there have been many reports of good results when local anesthesia is used with knee arthroscopy, it is not used as a standard anesthetic. Concerns about local anesthesia include the fear of prolonged surgery, which could result in inadequate anesthesia, thus causing the patient unnecessary discomfort. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the risk of repeat arthroscopy and the patient satisfaction rate up to 6 months after knee arthroscopy under local anesthesia. In this prospective, randomized study, 400 patients scheduled for elective knee arthroscopy were allocated to one of three groups: local anesthesia (200 patients), spinal anesthesia (100 patients), or general anesthesia (100 patients). All enrolled patients were asked to complete a questionnaire 6 months after surgery and all of their medical records were reviewed. No repeat arthroscopies occurred in the spinal and general anesthesia groups and only three occurred in the local anesthesia group, a nonsignificant difference. In only one of these three cases was the clinical course altered by the repeat arthroscopy. There was no difference in the satisfaction rate between the three anesthesia groups. We conclude that the choice of anesthesia does not influence the frequency of repeat arthroscopy, satisfaction with the procedure, or recovery at 6 months after knee arthroscopy.

Knee arthroscopy with different anesthesia methods: a comparison of efficacy and cost

“…Nevertheless, we find it important to study health care from an economic point of view, and to share experiences in order to produce as cost-effective health care as possible. In an earlier publication we showed that arthroscopy in LA is a safe procedure, with a similar clinical outcome to that achieved with arthroscopies in GA/SA [5,8,9]. Results of the present study show that arthroscopy in LA was both more cost-and time-effective than arthroscopy in SA/GA in our setup.…”

Influence of Ketorolac Supplementation on Pain Control for Knee Arthroscopy: A Meta‐Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

“…Knee arthroscopy has been widely accepted as the most important method to diagnose and treat knee diseases, and is characterized by sound diagnosis and minimal invasion during the surgery. Arthroscopic surgery of the knee is preferred by the majority of properly selected and well‐informed patients. Postoperative stay after the surgery is significantly shorter in patients receiving local anesthesia than general anesthesia.…”

Study of diagnostic and therapeutic Knee arthroscopy under local anesthetic infiltration

“…However there is concern that local anesthesia may not provide adequate pain control and may lead to increase in operative difficulties and reoperation rate and patient dissatisfaction [1,17].…”