Abstract :
Introduction: Hypertensive patients under the effect of general anaesthesia are traditionally found to
be hemodynamically unstable in comparison to normotensive patients. The application of regional
anaesthetics has been widely preferred by surgeons for lower-extremity surgery, but the use of general
anaesthesia during such surgeries are also reported, regardless of evidence that regional anaesthesia is safe
and may confer some advantages over general anaesthesia.
Materials and Methods: The data of 100 hypertensive patients collected from June 2017 to May 2019.
The blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and SPO2 (%) recorded before surgery, during
surgery and post-surgery. All the statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS 24.0 software.
Results: It was observed from the study that the systolic and diastolic blood pressure among the patients
pre, during and post surgery under general anaesthesia was found to be stable throughout while the systolic
blood pressure among the hypertensive patients under regional anaesthesia was found to be lower during
surgery. However, the levels reached to the normal levels post surgery. The median Visual Analog Scale
(VAS) pain score among the patients in general anaesthesia group was found to rise almost immediately
after the completion of the surgery reaching a peak during the 3rd hour of post surgery. However, the VAS
pain score among the patients of the regional anaesthesia group was found to rise only after the 2nd or 3rd
hour of post surgery.
Conclusion: The study therefore provides evidence that there were increased intra-operative fluctuations
and reduced post operative pain among the patients in the regional anaesthesia group in comparison to
those under general anaesthesia group.
Keyword :
General anaesthesia, Hypertension, Regional anaesthesia, Visual analog scale (VAS) pain, Systolic blood pressure, Diastolic blood pressure.