Spinal Anesthesia in a Patient with Morbid Obesity

Obesity has become an important public health problem all over the world with its increasing rate. Therefore, the frequency of encountering with this patient group in our anesthesia practice is increasing. Our patient was a 60 years-old woman. Her height was 150 cm, her body weight (BW) was 125 kilograms. Her body mass index (BMI) was 55.6 kg/m2. Her mallampaty score was 4. She was planned to be operated for a bladder tumor. She had no known allergies and medicine use. We decided to apply spinal anesthesia to our ASA 3 patient. Spinal intervention was performed at Lumbal 3-4 interval. We did not apply sedation because we planned to perform spinal anesthesia. In obese patients, anesthesia applications involve higher risks compared to normal patients due to accompanying diseases, anatomical and physiological changes. The correct identification of risks in the preoperative period is important for the prevention of complications that may occur in the intraoperative and postoperative period. In morbid obeses, 25G spinal needles with the 9-centimeter-length may be sufficient.