Furthermore, while hip fractures are typically treated with hip hemiarthroplasty, THAs may sometimes be used for surgical treatment. Although the incidence of hip fractures is declining due to various factors, the number of hip fractures in the United States is still expected to increase 1.9-fold by the year 2050, potentially leading to an increase in THA procedures performed [3].
Discussion
Effects on post-operative complicationsA multitude of data exists on the varying efficacy of either spinal or general anesthesia for THA operations, with a wide variation in study results reported. Such data often looks at a variety of factors including mortality, surgical site infections (SSI), deep vein thrombosis (DVT), myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and hospital length of stay (LOS). In one 2016 metaanalysis of 13 studies comprising over 350,000 patients who underwent THA or total knee arthroplasties (TKA), neuraxial anesthesia was significantly associated with a reduction of postoperative surgical site infections compared to general anesthesia (OR = 0.84; 95% CI 0.76 to 0.92; P < 0.001) [4]. Another analysis of 21 randomized control trials found that regional anesthesia reduced operating time (aOR -0.19, 95% CI -0.33 to -0.05), the need for transfusion (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.94), and thromboembolic disease (OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.84) [5]. While an investigation by Pu and Sun (2019) did not find a difference in blood loss and DVT occurrence in their analysis of 5 RCTs, they did note a significant reduction in nausea occurrence (RR 3.04, 95% CI 1.69 to 5.50) and LOS (WMD 1.00, 95% CI 0.59 to 1.41 days) in spinal compared to general anesthesia [6].In addition, several studies have replicated similar findings in specific patient populations. Among a data analysis of 30,000 patients with sleep apnea, found lower rates of complications postoperatively in neuraxial anesthesia, compared to combined neuraxial and general or general (16.0%, 17.2%, 18.1%) [7]. A study conducted