Comparison of spinal and general anesthesia approaches for MRI-guided brachytherapy for cervical cancer

Intradepartmental spinal anesthesia results in significant decreases in postprocedure narcotic usage compared with operating room-based general anesthesia. When using spinal anesthesia, addition of extradepartmental MRI does not increase treatment time. This workflow avoids transporting patients under general anesthesia, minimizes the need for MRI-compatible monitoring, allows treatment of multiple patients per day, and provides adequate analgesia.