Impact of Deep Versus Standard Muscle Relaxation on Intra-operative Safety

Muscle relaxants are routinely applied during anesthesia to facilitate endotracheal intubation and to improve surgical working conditions. Several investigations have shown that a deep neuromuscular block (NMB) improves the surgical working conditions over a moderate NMB and effectively precludes sudden deterioration of the surgical field. However, whether the improvement of surgical working conditions translates into less intra- and postoperative complications remains uncertain. Small prospective or retrospective studies shown an decrease of the incidence of intraoperative adverse events and postoperative complications after a deep NMB. There is a need to confirm these outcome data prospectively, in a large number of patients and clinics and during a variety of surgical procedures.

Muscle relaxants are routinely applied during anesthesia to facilitate endotracheal intubation and to improve surgical working conditions. Several investigations have shown that a deep neuromuscular block (NMB) (post tetanic count (PTC) 1-2 twitches) improves the surgical working conditions over a moderate NMB (TOF count 1-3 twitches) and effectively precludes sudden deterioration of the surgical field. However, whether the improvement of surgical working conditions translates into less intra- and postoperative complications remains uncertain. A recent retrospective analysis of neuromuscular management during laparoscopic retroperitoneal surgery showed a reduced rate of unplanned 30 day readmissions when a deep NMB over a moderate NMB was applied (3.8% vs. 12.7%).In addition, a pooled analysis of 4 randomized controlled trials comparing different levels of intra-abdominal pressure and neuromuscular blockade during laparoscopic donor nephrectomy, showed a significant reduction in the incidence of intra-operative surgical complications from 12.6% with moderate NMB to 4.8% with deep NMB. These previous observations were made in small prospective or retrospective studies. There is a need to confirm these outcome data prospectively, in a larger prospective trial for a variety of surgical procedures. We therefore propose a multi-center, randomized controlled trial, to study the effect of a deep NMB (PTC 1-2 twitches) versus standard NMB (single induction dose rocuronium) in a variety of laparoscopic surgical procedures on the incidence of intraoperative adverse events and postoperative outcome data. In this study the effect of deep neuromuscular block compared to standard neuromuscular block on intra-operative adverse events during laparoscopic surgery using the CLASSIC score system is evaluated.