Locoregional anesthesia is associated with lower 30-day mortality than general anesthesia in patients undergoing endovascular repair of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare 30-day postoperative mortality for patients undergoing endovascular repair of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (rAAA) using locoregional vs general anesthesia. Unlike the open approach, endovascular repair of rAAA can be performed using either locoregional or general anesthesia. We hypothesize that mortality after endovascular repair of rAAA is lower when locoregional rather than general anesthesia is used. METHODS: Propensity score matching techniques were used to compare the 30-day postoperative outcomes of patients from the 2007 to 2015 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database who underwent endovascular repair of rAAA under locoregional vs general anesthesia. RESULTS: Of the 1382 endovascular rAAA repair procedures in our overall study population, 132 (9.5%) were performed using locoregional anesthesia. Our propensity score matching algorithm yielded a cohort of 130 general anesthesia patients who were well matched with their locoregional anesthesia counterparts for known patient and procedure characteristics. The 30-day postoperative mortality rates for patients in the matched cohort were 14.6% for patients in the locoregional anesthesia group compared with 29.2% for patients in the general anesthesia group (P = .002). CONCLUSIONS: Locoregional rather than general anesthesia is associated with a significantly lower 30-day mortality after endovascular repair of rAAA. The designs of future trials comparing endovascular and open rAAA repair should include stratification of endovascular procedures by anesthesia modality.