Material and methods:

Prospective, quasi-experimental, longitudinal study to compare two anesthetic procedures: intraarticular anesthesia (lidocaine with epinephrine, bupivacaine and fentanyl) without the use of ischemia (group A); spinal blockage and use of ischemia (group B) by assessing age, surgery time, pain during surgery and 24 hour post-op VA scale, time spent in recovery, need to administer general anesthesia or anesthetic rescue doses, 24-hour range of motion. Student t-test, significance level was used: p < 0.05 for nonparametric variables and χ2 parametric variables.

Results:

38 patients were included per group. The surgical time (45 min vs 39 min, p = 0.03), recovery time (1.9 vs 3 hours, p = 0.0004) were lower in group A, while pain during surgery was greater (17 vs 3%, p = 0.09), without requiring general anesthesia.

Conclusion:

The advantages in favor of intraarticular anesthesia were: shortened hospital stays, less pain at 24 hours, safety in its application. Its disadvantage is the possibility of pain during surgery and sedation is sufficient as adjuvant.