Prospective study of the effectiveness of retrobulbar and peribulbar anesthesia for anterior segment surgery.

Peribulbar anesthesia was performed in 407 patients and retrobulbar anesthesia in 441 patients in a prospective study comparing the efficacy and complication rate of the two procedures. Eighteen of the peribulbar procedures (4.4%) required reblocks. There were no major complications in this group. Thirty of the retrobulbar procedures (6.8%) required reblocks. This group also had no major complications. The chi-square method of statistical analysis (chi-square = 2.245; P = .134) indicates there was no statistically significant difference between the efficacy of the two local anesthesia methods.