Standards of anaesthesia for total knee and hip arthroplasty procedures. A survey-based study. Part II: Anaesthetic management.

BACKGROUND: Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and total hip arthroplasty (THA) procedures are being performed more and more frequently. Since these procedures carry an indirect risk of perioperative complications, practice standards are warranted to minimise the incidence of adverse events. A survey-based study was carried out to identify the patterns of anaesthesiology practice in Polish hospitals. METHODS: A survey was conducted among anaesthetists nationwide using the LimeSurvey application. The questions concerned the intraoperative and postoperative periods and focused mainly on the determination of anaesthetic methods for total joint replacement (TJR) procedures and postoperative pain management. Questionnaires included both single and multiple-choice questions. RESULTS: A total of 258 responses from anaesthetists from 112 Polish healthcare institutions were included in the analysis. The subarachnoid block is performed by 86.0% of anaesthetists for TKA and 88.0% for THA. For TKA procedures, 30.6% of respondents state that they do not perform any additional peripheral block, and for THA this percentage is 44.6%. The most commonly performed peripheral nerve block for TKA is the femoral nerve block (46.5%) and for THA it is the fascia iliaca compartment block (42.6%). More than 90% of anaesthetists report routine use of systemic analgesics in TJR, with opioid use exceeding 80%. CONCLUSIONS: The study showed that anaesthetic perioperative care in Poland requires several modifications to better adhere to clinical standards. The most important issues include increasing the number of regional blocks, decreasing the use of opioid analgesics for post-operative pain management and introducing perioperative troponin screening.