Novel anesthesia ensures hip replacement surgery success
Renji Hospital on Monday announced that it has successfully carried out hip replacement surgery for a highly-at-risk senior through a novel anesthesia instead of the traditional general anesthesia to ensure the patient's safety.
The 88-year-old male with hip fracture suffered from various severe conditions like large-scale stroke, serious infection and poor heart function. All these factors meant that both anesthesia and surgery could entail risks.
Doctors from Renji Hospital inject regional anesthesia under ultrasound guidance on the nerves around the surgery portion for temporary nerve block during the hip replacement surgery for an 88-year-old male.
Doctors said that surgery was the best treatment to ease the patient's pain and restore his overall condition. However, the patient would not be able to tolerate the effects of general anesthesia, which is anyway risky for elderly patients, with chance of a stroke or heart failure. Ordinary anesthesia can't be used on such patients.
Age and complicated conditions shouldn't be reasons for refusing surgery for any patient, so experts decided to introduce a novel anesthesia.
Through the procedure, regional anesthesia under ultrasound guidance was injected on the nerves around the surgery portion for temporary nerve block.
"Such regional anesthesia has the least impact on the body to ensure the operation. The ultrasound works like an eye to help anesthetists conduct the precise process," said Dr Huang Zhenling.
The elderly patient is recovering well, the hospital said.
