Effects of general anesthesia on quality of recovery after transaxillary endoscopic breast augmentation: A randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Types of general anesthesia may affect the quality of recovery, but few studies have investigated the quality of postoperative recovery, and none has focused on patients undergoing breast augmentation. METHODS: This prospective, parallel, randomized controlled study enrolled 104 patients undergoing transaxillary endoscopic breast augmentation. Eligible patients were randomly assigned to receive inhalation anesthesia (IH, n = 52) or total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA, n = 52). Quality of recovery was assessed on the first and on the second postoperative days using the 15-item Quality of Recovery questionnaire (QoR-15). Baseline demographic, clinical characteristics, and operative data were also collected. RESULTS: The IH and TIVA groups had similar QoR-15 total scores on the first postoperative day (P = .921) and on the second postoperative day (P = .960), but the IH group had a significantly higher proportion of patients receiving antiemetics than the TIVA group (53.6% vs 23.1%, P = .002). Multivariate analysis revealed that the type of general anesthesia was not significantly associated with QoR-15 total scores on the first postoperative day (β = 0.68, P = .874) and with QoR-15 total scores on the second postoperative day (β = 0.56, P = .892), after adjusting for age, BMI, operation time, steroids use, and antiemetics use. CONCLUSION: For the patients undergoing transaxillary endoscopic breast augmentation, the type of general anesthesia did not significantly impact the quality of recovery. Both IH or TIVA could provide good quality of recovery demonstrated by high QoR-15 total scores. The results suggested that the type of general anesthesia may not be the most critical factors of quality of recovery in the patients undergoing transaxillary endoscopic breast augmentation.