Total intravenous anesthesia for major burn surgery.

UNLABELLED: Total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) is frequently used for major operations requiring general anesthesia in critically ill burn patients. We reviewed our experience with this approach.
METHODS: During a 22-month period, 547 major burn surgeries were performed in this center's operating room and were staffed by full-time burn anesthesiologists. The records of all 123 TIVA cases were reviewed; 112 records were complete and were included. For comparison, 75 cases were selected at random from a total of 414 non-TIVA general anesthetics. Some patients had more than one operation during the study: as appropriate for the analysis in question, each operation or each patient was entered as an individual case. For inter-patient analysis, exposure to 1 or more TIVAs was used to categorize a patient as member of the TIVA group.
RESULTS: Excision and grafting comprised 78.2% of the operations. 14 TIVA regimens were used, employing combinations of 4 i.v. drugs: ketamine (K, 91 cases); i.v. methadone (M, 62); fentanyl (F, 58); and propofol (P, 21). The most common regimens were KM (34 cases); KF (26); KMF (16); and K alone (8). Doses used often exceeded those used in non-burn patients. TIVA was preferred for those patients who were more critically ill prior to surgery, with a higher ASA score (3.87 vs. 3.11). Consistent with this, inhalation injury (26.7 vs. 1.6%), burn size (TBSA, 36.3 vs. 15.8%), and full-thickness burn size (FULL, 19.8 vs. 6.5%) were higher in TIVA than in non-TIVA patients. Despite this, intraoperative pressor use was as common in TIVA as in non-TIVA cases (23.9 vs. 22.7%).
CONCLUSIONS: TIVA was used in patients whose inhalation injury rate and TBSA were greater than those of non-TIVA patients. TIVA cases were not associated with increased hemodynamic instability. TIVA is a viable approach to general anesthesia in critically ill burn patients.