Incidence of Hypotension and Associated-risk Factors in Epidural Anesthesia With 2% Lidocaine and Epinephrine During Elective Cesarean Section, Efficacy and Safety Assessment

Background: Cesarean section is a worldwide common surgery that requires anesthetic techniques. Many local anesthetics are being now used, but are associated with, dose- dependent and at different level, some side effects including toxicity. Hypotension was described as the first and threat side effect associated to neuraxial techniques. Despite many preventive strategies, it continues to challenge anesthesia providers around the world. Lidocaine was found to be less toxic compared with others commonly used and has been recommended for anesthesia procedures requiring large dose of local anesthetic including epidural anesthesia. The main purpose of this research was to determine the incidence of hypotension and identify the possible risk factors associated with it and thus, assess the efficacy and safety when lidocaine is applied together with epinephrine, in epidural anesthesia for elective cesarean delivery. Materials and methods: This retrospective observational institutional-based study, recruited 612 parturients who underwent elective cesarean section under epidural anesthesia with 2% lidocaine and 1/200000 epinephrine, at 1st affiliated hospital of Chongqing Medical University in 2019. Exclusion criteria included any contraindication to elective cesarean section delivery, general anesthesia, baseline systolic blood pressure < 100mmh and > 140 mm hg, gestational age < 37 weeks and > 42 weeks etc. SPSS 26.0 version and different appropriated tests were used for statistical analysis. P value < 0.05 was accepted as statistically significant. Results: The hypotension incidence was 13.2%, and identified factors associated with it were Baseline Systolic Blood Pressure < 120mmhg, gestational age < 40 weeks, maternal body weight ≤ 60 kg and duration of cesarean delivery (surgery) > 45 minutes. Conclusion: The variables in correlation with increased hypotension rate are baseline systolic blood pressure, gestational age, maternal weight, and surgery duration. 2%Lidocaine with epinephrine as adjuvant presented best outcomes towards both mother and neonates, was therefore efficacy and safe under the anesthetic conditions of our study.