The Ultrasound Guided Versus Land-mark Location Method for Performing Spinal Anesthesia in Obese Parturients

This study will be investigated whether an ultrasound-assisted technique is better than a classical land-mark technique to facilitate spinal anesthesia in the lateral position in morbidly obese pregnant women with BMI ≥ 40 who will undergo elective cesarean section. The primary objective in this study is the rate of successful dural puncture at the first attempt. It was assumed that ultrasound could facilitate neuraxial blockade in grade 3 morbidly obese pregnant women according to the Who classification, whose topographic anatomy is difficult.

Spinal anesthesia is the most commonly used anesthesia method for elective cesarean deliveries. Anesthesiologists may have difficulties in determining the poorly palpable surface landmarks in morbidly obese pregnant women. Manual palpation technique, which is preferred in neuraxial anesthesia, may be difficult in obese pregnant women due to the difficulty in identifying bone landmarks. Neuraxial ultrasound examination before spinal anesthesia may help spinal anesthesia performance and decrease number of attempts in obese parturients. This study will be conducted as a single-center, prospective, randomized, double-blinded trial in a university hospital. Patients scheduled for elective cesarean will be screened for enrollment in the study. Patient, the anesthetist administering spinal anesthesia and evaluating the data were blind to the distribution of patient groups.Ultrasonographic examinations were performed by a single investigator trained in this technique who performed more than 150 ultrasound-guided neuraxial blocks.