Wide awake local anesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) - Turkish patients' perspective

Abstract

Objectives: Recently, wide awake local anesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) technique has been rapidly increasing in popularity because of its benefits for surgeons, patients, and institutions. In this study, we wanted to evaluate Turkish patients’ operative experiences with different hand surgery procedures under WALANT. Methods: There were 138 patients included in this study who were operated under WALANT and accepted to fill a questionnaire during telephone interview. Patients were asked to quantify their pain levels on a numerical rating scale (NRS) and compare the operation to a dental procedure. They were also asked about their expectations and their feelings about re-operation with the same anesthesia method. Results: The mean age was 43.5 years, and the mean follow-up was 11.2 months. The mean NRS pain score was 2.3 during local anesthetic administration, and it was 1.2 during surgery. Seventy-six percent of responders reported a better operative experience when compared with dental procedures, and 77.5% of them reported a better operative experience than they had expected. Eighty-eight percent of the patients wished to be operated on with the same anesthesia method for any possible operations in the future. Conclusions: We observed that Turkish patients readily adopted the WALANT technique and were satisfied with their operative experience. We advise WALANT technique for a variety of hand surgery procedures.