Effectiveness and Complication of Local Anesthesia in Non-Vascular Interventional Radiology

Abstract

Background: In the past few years, there has been extraordinary growth in interventional radiology owing to the benefit of image guidance and minimally invasive procedures. Appropriate utilization of local anesthetics reduces discomfort for patients and improves their satisfaction thus decreasing the requirement of sedation, complications, and prolonged hospitalization. Objective: To determine the patient’s satisfaction with local anesthetics used in non-vascular interventional radiology procedures, onset of action, and record the frequency of complications experienced by the patient. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Settings: Interventional Radiology department, Dow University Hospital, Karachi Pakistan. Duration: 2 months, from October 2022 to November 2022. Methods: After informed consent, 246 patients who underwent FNAC procedure, Lidocaine 2% was administered subcutaneously in each patient. Onset of action, pain score on visual analog scale (VAS), patient satisfaction with anesthesia and immediate post procedural complications were recorded on the questionnaire. Results: There were 88 males and 158 females with the mean age of 44.07 ± 16.94 years. The mean onset of action of anesthesia was 10.80 ± 3.61 seconds. None of the patients required reinjection of local anesthesia. 97.6% of patients were satisfied with local anesthesia. Complete loss of sensation was recorded in 96.3% patients, post-procedure complications were observed in 19.9%, of which most common was pain (16.7%), followed by blurring of vision in 3.3% of the cases. Conclusion: Overall patients' satisfaction with pre-procedural anesthesia used in non-vascular interventional radiology is high. Further improvement can be achieved by appropriate patient counseling