Life Cycle Assessment of Different Types of Anesthetic

University of Alberta

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Carbon Footprint in Anesthetic

Treatments: Other: Regional anesthetic; Other: Combined general anesthetic and regional anesthetic; Other: General anesthetic

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05385367

Pro00118522

Details and patient eligibility

About

Following Ethics approval, all adult patients undergoing surgery to fix the wrist fracture will be approached and consent to undergo this study. The amount of waste generated from general anesthetic, regional anesthetic and regional+general anesthetic will be collected and weighed.

Patients undergoing this type of wrist surgery have only regional anesthetic, or general anesthetic, or both ie. regional anesthetic and general anesthetic.

The aim of the study is to compare the amount of waste generated from each type of anesthetic and this will give us a better idea of which anesthetic is more environmentally sustainable.

Full description

Following Ethics approval, all adult patients undergoing surgery to fix the wrist fracture will be approached and consent to undergo this study. The amount of waste generated from general anesthetic, regional anesthetic and regional+general anesthetic will be collected and weighed. Waste will include disposable and reusable wastes. Examples of disposable waste are all plastic packaging, syringes, needles, breathing tube, breathing circuits, gloves as well as drugs. Examples of reusable waste will be anesthetic face mask, laryngeal mask (which is a form of airway device that can be reprocessed), sterile gowns. The amount of anesthetic gas used will be obtained from the anesthetic machine.

Patients undergoing this type of wrist surgery have only regional anesthetic (freezing performed higher up in the arm to numb the whole arm for several hours), or general anesthetic (patient completely goes to deep anesthetic sleep), or both ie. regional anesthetic (freezing just for pain control afterwards) and general anesthetic (patient goes to deep anesthetic sleep after the freezing is done and they may need less pain killer during the surgery as well as afterwards).

The amount of waste generated will be compared amongst these 3 groups by life cycle analysis.

Enrollment: 90 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 19+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• All adult patients undergoing open reduction and internal fixation of wrist
• ASA 1-3

Exclusion criteria

• no contraindications for general anesthetic in the group for general anesthetic and vice versa

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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90 participants in 3 patient groups

Regional anesthetic

Other group

Description:

Patients only have nerve block with or without sedation

Treatment:

Other: Regional anesthetic

General anesthetic

Other group

Description:

Patients only have general anesthetic

Treatment:

Other: General anesthetic

Combined general anesthetic and regional anesthetic

Other group

Description:

Patients have both general anesthetic and regional anesthetic together

Treatment:

Other: Combined general anesthetic and regional anesthetic