Local anaesthetic use 'would cut deaths'

Major surgery could be carried out under local anaesthesia

Using local rather than general anaesthetic during major surgery could increase the patient's survival chances by 30%, researchers say.

Until now local anaesthetic has only been used in some smaller operations.

But scientists now believe it could help reduce the risk of life threatening blood clots which appear after surgery.

General anaesthesia makes a person totally unconscious and is achieved by administering intravenous drugs.

Regional anaesthesia numbs only a part of the body and is achieved by injecting a drug near nerves.

One type of regional anaesthesia is 'epidural' anaesthesia and is often given to women during childbirth.

Researchers from the University of Auckland studied the impact of different types of anaesthesia on 10,000 patients world-wide in the most comprehensive study of its kind.

As well as a substantial drop in death rates, they found use of local anaesthesia led to:

• a 40% reduction in blood clotting complications and deep vein thrombosis in the legs
• a 50% reduction of blood clotting in the lungs
• a 40% reduction in pneumonia and other types of infections
• a 50% reduction in the need for post-operative blood transfusions

There is also suggestion that local anaesthesia leads to fewer heart attacks and reduced kidney failure.

Professor Ian Power, from the Department of Anaesthetics at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, said evidence was increasing that local anaesthetic was safer.

He said: "The study used local anaesthetic in combination with general anaesthesia on occasions and they still found a benefit from the local anaesthetic.

"So patients need not worry about being awake - this is something they can have extra as well as a general anaesthetic."

Professor Power said there might be problems with giving patients a double dose of anaesthetic - but a combination of small doses of general and local anaesthesia should be safe and enough to ensure patients are unconscious throughout surgery too.

The research is published in the British Medical Journal.