Determinación preanestésica del volumen gástrico por ecografía en apendicectomías. Hospital José Carrasco Arteaga. Cuenca, 2020 – 2021

Abstract

Background: Breathing of gastric contents into the airways is a serious complication that can occur during local anesthesia; especially in emergency surgeries, such as appendectomies, where preoperative fasting is not always reliable and it is considerade full stomach. Ultrasound is a useful tool to measure gastric volume, predicting the risk of breathing into the airways, and to choose accurate anesthetic management. Objective: To determine the preanesthetic gastric volume by ultrasound in patients who are going to undergo appendectomy at the José Carrasco Arteaga Hospital. Methods: A descriptive observational study. The population consisted of adult patients undergoing appendectomy at the José Carrasco Hospital. The sample was calculated according to an unknown universe, obtaining 174 participants. The results were processed in SPSS V27, and expressed in measures of frequency, central tendency and dispersion according to the type of variable. A histogram was used for a general visualization of the behavior of the gastric volume. Results: the majority of patients were men, between 30 and 39 years old, overweight and ASA 1. The mean gastric volume was 41.88 ± 23.92 ml The average fasting time was 9.5 hours, 42.5% took clear liquids for the last time. 21.3% are considered to have “at risk stomach” condition and 1.7% have high risk of breathing into the airways. There was a change in anesthetic induction in 4.6%. Conclusions: the gastric volume measured by ultrasound was highly variable, the majority of patients had a low risk of aspiration and no association was found with any pharmacological or pathological factors that alter gastric emptying.