Association between general anesthesia combined with peripheral nerve blocks versus neuraxial anesthesia without nerve blocks for high-risk isolated distal deep venous thrombosis in patients undergoing knee arthroplasty: a historical cohort study.

Purpose: General anesthesia combined with peripheral nerve blocks has become a common anesthesia regimen for knee replacement surgery. Its association with high-risk isolated distal deep venous thrombosis (IDDVT) remains uncertain.

Methods: In this cohort study, we obtained consecutive data from the electronic inpatient records of Shenzhen Second People's Hospital, including adults who underwent knee arthroplasty from 1 September 2019 to 31 August 2021. The primary outcome was the incidence of high-risk IDDVT. We compared the outcomes in patients who received general anesthesia combined with nerve blocks with those in patients who received neuraxial anesthesia without nerve blocks, using a multivariable regression model with inverse probability weighting according to the propensity score.

Results: Of the 848 patients who underwent knee arthroplasty, 330 were excluded because they lacked thrombus testing or had received other types of anesthesia. Of the remaining 518 patients, 267/518 (52%) received general anesthesia combined with nerve blocks and 251/518 (48%) received neuraxial anesthesia with no nerve blocks. A total of 99 patients developed high-risk IDDVT. In the primary multivariable analysis with inverse probability weighting according to the propensity score, general anesthesia combined with nerve blocks was associated with a significantly reduced high-risk IDDVT compared with neuraxial anesthesia without nerve blocks (odds ratio, 0.50; 95% confidence interval, 0.31 to 0.81; P = 0.005). The results of multiple sensitivity analyses were similar between the two cohorts. E-value analysis suggested robustness to unmeasured confounding.

Conclusions: Compared with neuraxial anesthesia without peripheral nerve blocks, general anesthesia combined with peripheral nerve blocks in patients undergoing knee arthroplasty was associated with a reduced incidence of high-risk IDDVT in our retrospective study. A large multicentre prospective clinical trial is needed to validate our findings.

Study registration: ChiCTR.org.cn ( ChiCTR2200057006 ), first submitted 25 February 2022.