A new anesthesia procedure has been used at the Clinical Center of the University of Debrecen for thyroid surgeries – unideb.hu reported.
During the operation, the patient is sedated but awake and can communicate with the doctors performing the surgery. The intervention with the new method is less burdensome for the patient, as it does not have to take into account the occasional unpleasant side effects of anesthesia or the possible difficulties of intubation.
At the Clinical Center of the University of Debrecen, cervical surgery has been performed under local anesthesia for more than 10 years, and the ultrasound-guided version of the procedure was introduced at the institution by anesthesiologist Zoltán Gyöngyösi 5 years ago. The use of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia in thyroid surgery was heard at a scientific congress by experts from Debrecen, who then learned the method.
I studied ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia at the University of Pécs with Róbert Almási. The application of the method in thyroid surgeries was learned by my surgeon Ferenc Győry at the National Institute of Oncology from the anesthesiologist Ferenc Zelenai and the surgeon Bernadett Lévay. Our professional development was fully supported by Professor Béla Fülesdi, Director of the Department of Anesthesiology, and Professor Dezső Tóth, Head of the Department of Surgery, Zoltán Gyöngyösi, a specialist at the Clinic of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, DE Clinical Center, told hirek.unideb.hu.
Anesthesia is no longer required in all cases of thyroid surgery, the patient does not need to be intubated, ventilated or operated on under deep anesthesia. Thanks to the new anesthesia procedure, the procedure can be performed painlessly even when awake. Using ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia, only the appropriate nerves are blocked and anesthetized in the area where the surgery is taking place.
