Abstract
BACKGROUND: Volatile anesthetics cause Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like neuropathology in animals. We determined whether spine surgery under general anesthesia and anesthetic choice contributed to AD development. METHODS: We searched the Clinical Data Repository of the University of Virginia for patients receiving spine surgery from January 1, 1992 to March 1, 2004. Patients with newly-diagnosed AD after the surgery but before March 1, 2009 (a minimal 5-year follow-up time after the surgery) were identified. RESULTS: Among 10,161 spine surgery patients, 26 patients had new-onset AD. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses of the data from these 26 patients and from 161 randomly selected spine surgery patients without new-onset AD suggest that increasing age is a risk factor for new-onset AD. Gender, anesthesia/surgery time, use of volatile anesthetics versus propofol (an intravenous anesthetic) and length of hospital stay were not different between patients with and without new-onset AD. Similar results were found with the case-control study. The frequency of new-onset AD in spine surgery patients was similar to that of patients who had never had a surgery. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that increasing age is a risk factor for AD in patients after spine surgery. Anesthesia/surgery may not be independent factors for AD development.