Expert: Ronald Levy, M.D. - 11/26/2007

Question
My husband had a 90 seed prostate implant and we were curious to know what kind of anesthesia they used, so several weeks later we picked up a copy of his hospital records but there was no mention about anything like that in them. The only thing in the hopsital record was that
he had a seed implant for prostate cancer and that one seed had to be retrived from the bladder.  Do you know how we can find out what kind of aneesthesia he had?  Thank you.

Answer
It is not unusual for records to be misplaced. They will usually turn up at some point. I would suggest looking through the nurses notes (particularly from the Recovery Room as they will likely give you some information. The best source may be your husband. He will know if they gave him sedation, a spinal or general anesthetic. The specifics after that are not that important.

Ronald Levy, MD
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology
UTMB-Galveston