Today, urologists care for patients who have benign diseases of the ureter, bladder, and urethra such as kidney or bladder stones as well as patients with malignancies such as bladder tumors or prostate cancer. Furthermore, as technology improves, larger, more invasive operations are being replaced by minimally invasive procedures. Patient comorbidities and need for anticoagulant medications have increased in quantity and scope. Therefore, anesthetic techniques, which have historically relied heavily on neuraxial anesthesia, have been forced to evolve to safely care for these progressively ill patients. Thus, a number of historical approaches to urologic procedures are no longer applicable. Therefore, an understanding of the type and scope of the operation being performed as well as an understanding of the patient’s own comorbidities is key to safely caring for the modern urologic patient.
This review contains 5 figures, 5 tables, and 30 references.
Key Words: bladder, cystectomy, hyponatremia, irrigating fluids, lithotripsy, prostate, transurethral resection of prostate, ureter, urethra
Emerging minimally invasive procedures for focal treatment of organ-confined prostate cancer