Anesthetic Techniques and Incidence of Complications in Fetoscopic Surgery

Nowadays, fetoscopic surgery has been accepted to be a procedure to correct numerous congenital anomalies. This operation can be successfully done under general, regional or local anesthesia with sedation. Incidence of complications from anesthesia in fetoscopic surgery has not been reported in Thailand. To describe anesthetic techniques and incidence of complications in fetoscopic surgery. Data of 152 pregnant women undergoing fetoscopic surgery in a single university hospital was retrospectively chart reviewed from June 2005 to November 2015. Patient characteristics, choices of anesthesia, medication used, intraoperative data and complications were collected. During the study period, spinal anesthesia was the most popular technique used in fetoscopic surgery (71%). Other anesthetic techniques used were general anesthesia with endotracheal tube (GA) (20.5%), epidural anesthesia (1.3%), combined spinal and epidural anesthesia (0.7%), failed spinal anesthesia converting to GA (2.6%) and local anesthesia with sedation (3.9%). Most frequent anesthetic-related complication was maternal hypotension which occurs in 115 out of 152 patients (75.6%). All of 5 cases (3.3%) of postoperative pulmonary edema received SA. Fetal death after operation was 25 in 152 records (16.4%). None of patients received GA experienced desaturation, pulmonary aspiration, failed intubation or pulmonary edema. Spinal anesthesia (SA) is the most frequent technique used for fetoscopy, and hypotension is the most common complication. Since pulmonary edema was also found, judicious perioperative fluid management should be implemented to prevent postoperative pulmonary edema.