Comparison of Safety and Efficacy of Anesthesia Methods in Percutaneous Endoscopic Lumbar Discectomy: A Network Meta-Analysis.

The objective of this study was to systematically evaluate the safety and efficacy of local anesthesia, general anesthesia, and epidural anesthesia in percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD). We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and OVID databases for all relevant studies. All statistical analysis was performed using STATA 17.0. Fourteen studies were finally included, comprising 7 randomized controlled trials and 7 retrospective studies. The total number of subjects across these studies was 1655, with 316 undergoing general anesthesia, 789 undergoing local anesthesia, and 550 undergoing epidural anesthesia. The meta-analysis of pairwise comparisons suggests that there are no differences among epidural, general anesthesia, and local anesthesia in terms of postoperative VAS, ODI, and surgery time. Regarding complications, general anesthesia has a higher complication rate compared with local anesthesia, but there are no differences between epidural and general anesthesia or between epidural and local anesthesia. In terms of anesthesia satisfaction, both general and epidural anesthesia have higher satisfaction rates compared with local anesthesia, with no significant difference between general and epidural anesthesia. The ranking of the best probabilities shows that epidural anesthesia has the lowest postoperative VAS and highest anesthesia satisfaction. General anesthesia has the lowest ODI scores. Local anesthesia has the fewest complications and operative time. Local anesthesia, general anesthesia, and epidural anesthesia are all safe and effective methods for PELD. Local anesthesia has advantages in complications and operation time. Epidural anesthesia is most advantageous in anesthesia satisfaction and postoperative VAS scores. General anesthesia is most advantageous in postoperative ODI. In the future, more multicenter RCTs are needed to further compare the safety and effectiveness of different anesthesia methods in PELD.