ABSTRACT
Introduction: Worldwide, uterine fibroid is the commonestgynaecological tumour in women. The standard treatment forsymptomatic uterine fibroid is surgery. This is facilitated usinganaesthesia, which could be general or Central neuraxial block(Regional anaesthesia, RA). In Nigeria, most women presentlate with huge fibroids which is a main determinant of themode of anaesthesia. While general anaesthesia (GA) is morecommonly used, it is not without challenges necessitating theincreasing use of Regional anaesthesia (RA) which is thoughtto be more beneficial for the patient. This study seeks to auditthe anaesthetic practice for fibroid surgeries over a five yearperiod in our Institution, assess the role of RA and to generateawareness with a view to increasing its utilization for fibroidsurgeries.Material and methods: The Nurses’ and Doctors ‘theatrerecords were reviewed for Socio demographics, type ofanaesthesia, type of surgery and uterine size.Result: Summary of statistics was done using percentages,means and standard deviation. Categorical variables werecompared using the Chi-square test. A P-value of <0.05 wasconsidered statistically significant. Five hundred and twentyfive (525) surgeries were performed for women with uterinefibroid with an age range of 20-65years.Two hundred andfifteen (215/41%) patients had GA, while 284 (54.1%) hadRA. Twenty six patients (26.4.9%) had spinal anaesthesia thatfailed and had to be converted to GA.Conclusion: There was a yearly increase in the use of RA,and a yearly decline in the use of GA. Regional Anaesthesiais the more commonly used mode of anaesthesia for fibroidsurgeries in our institution.