Local Anaesthetic Technique in Endovascular Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair: Is it Time to Change the Paradigm?

Endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysm has been the main treatment approach for the last two decades. Its outcomes have been reported to be satisfactory over such period and provided a lower morbidity and mortality rates when compared to the conventional open repairs. With time, the initial use of general anaesthetics has been replaced with regional anaesthesia and lately, the utilization of local anaesthesia (LA) for stenting the abdominal aortic aneurysms have been practiced in several centres internationally with excellent outcomes in selected cohorts. The key success in using LA is the advancement in the access techniques and less requirement for conventional open method to advance and deploy the stents through the femoral artery. This literature review aims at examining the current evidences behind the success of LA and whether it is going to be the new wide spread and standard method for anaesthesia in elective or emergency cases of endovascular repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms.