Time under anaesthetic a factor in head and neck surgery

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Age is not a factor in recovery from head and neck surgery, but time under general anaesthetic is.
It's expected that the numbers needing head and neck surgery for conditions like cancer will increase as the population ages. Researchers at the State University of New York Donwstate Medical Center now report on an important factor affecting the outcome - time under general anaesthesia (TUGA). The study covered a group of 157 patients having major head and neck surgery aged between nine and 95 years. The average age was 56 and 59 per of the group was male.

The patient's age was not a factor in determining the outcome of surgery. Instead, TUGA was found the be highly relevant. In this group, TUGA ranged from 75 to 1,160 minutes with a median value of 240 minutes. The odds of a complication went up by 0.6 per cent for every additional minute of anaesthesia. Thus, although TUGA cannot necessarily be controlled, surgeons need to bear in mind that this can be a major factor affecting recovery after head and neck surgery.

Source
Archives of Otolarynology Head and Neck Surgery July 2005 Volume 131 pages 605-609