Anjana Bose1, Rinki Das2, Sumona Maiti Das3, Aloke Ghosh Dastidar4
BACKGROUND
Thyroid surgery for small solitary nodule can be done under cervical plexus block.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate patients in terms of haemodynamic
changes, pain during surgery, conversion to general anaesthesia (GA), hospital
stay and complications.
METHODS
This is an observational study conducted among 30 patients who were given 20
ml (10 ml lignocaine 1 % with adrenaline + 10 ml of ropivacaine 0.5 %) on the
operating side for deep and superficial cervical plexus block and 10 ml (5 ml
lignocaine 1 % with adrenaline + 5 ml of ropivacaine 0.5 %) on the opposite side
for superficial cervical plexus block. During the waiting time an infusion of
dexmedetomidine was started 1 mcg / kg body weight for the first 10 minutes and
then 0.5 mcg / kg body weight throughout the operating time. Patients were
followed up for 4 hours postoperative to assess requirement of analgesics and 24
hours for readiness of discharge.
RESULTS
Data was collected using MS Excel software. Paired t-test was done to find the
significance. Among 30 patients, 5 patients had to be converted to general
anaesthesia, rest 25 patients were haemodynamically very stable during surgery
and there was no episode of bradycardia due to dexmedetomidine. Analgesia
lasted for 3 - 4 hours and patients were very stable by 12 hours and converted to
oral analgesics.
CONCLUSIONS
It is quite safe to perform surgery on thyroid nodules less than 10 cms in size
under cervical plexus block using lignocaine and ropivacaine.
