Increasing the duration of anesthesia from five hours to 12 hours for microvascular reconstruction of the head and neck significantly increases the risk for surgical complications and the need for postoperative transfusion, according to a study in JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery (2018;20[3]:188-195).
“When surgeons are performing this type of surgery, they should diligently try to cut down on anesthesia duration and excessive blood loss,” said co-author Richard Chan Woo Park, MD,