Regional anesthesia in patients with significant comorbid disease.

Overview

An increasing body of evidence suggests that regional anesthesia does not only provide better pain control compared to systemic analgesic and anesthetic techniques but that it is associated with improved perioperative outcomes. As these benefits may be especially prominent in the patient population suffering from high comorbidity burden, anesthesiologists have to be familiar with associated factors that may complicate the decision to use regional anesthetics. This manuscript is intended to provide a brief overview of the recent literature regarding beneficial outcomes associated with the use of regional versus general anesthesia, before focusing on the discussion of the implications of specific comorbid states on the performance of regional anesthetic techniques.