Anesthesia clinical trials at UCSF

Postoperative pulmonary complications (PPCs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in surgical patients. National estimates suggest 1,062,000 PPCs per year, with 46,200 deaths, and 4.8 million additional days of hospitalization. The objective of the study is to develop and implement perioperative strategies to eliminate PPCs in abdominal surgery, the field with the largest absolute number of PPCs. We will conduct a randomized controlled pragmatic trial in 750 studied participants. The effectiveness of an individualized perioperative anesthesia-centered bundle will be compared to the usual anesthetic care in patients receiving open abdominal surgery. At the end of this project, the investigators expect to change clinical practice by establishing a new and clinically feasible anesthesia-centered strategy to reduce perioperative lung morbidity. The research will be conducted across 14 US academic centers, and will be funded by the National Institute of Health.

The investigators will conduct a 12,500-patient randomized multi-center trial to determine (i) which general anesthesia technique yields superior patient recovery experiences in any of three surgical categories ((a) major inpatient surgery, (b) minor inpatient surgery, (c) outpatient surgery) and (ii) whether TIVA confers no more than a small (0.2 %) increased risk of intraoperative awareness than INVA in patients undergoing both outpatient and inpatient surgeries