Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 1980
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialEpidural versus general anaesthesia for total hip arthroplasty in elderly patients.
Sixty elderly patients were given at random either epidural analgesia with bupivacaine 0.75% or general anaesthesia with thiopentone, fentanyl, pancuronium, N2O/O2 for total hip replacement. Preoperatively the patients were of equal physical status with normal and similar laboratory values. All patients were mentally normal for their age. ⋯ Two patients in the epidural group had symptoms of pulmonary embolism postoperatively. Thus elderly patients appear to do better after hip replacement with less deterioration of cerebral and pulmonary functions when given epidural analgesia than when surgery is performed under general anaesthesia. These patients should therefore be offered epidural analgesia whenever possible.