Developing new anesthesia and analgesia methods for day surgery

Joint replacement operations are increasingly performed as day surgery, which offers faster recovery at home, reduced risk of infection, shorter hospital stays and cost savings. Anesthesia plays a key role in successful day surgery and, for that reason, researchers are now developing new anesthesia and analgesia methods.

Published: 2.10.2025
Text: Panu Uusalo
Editing: Viestintätoimisto Jokiranta Oy

Hip and knee joint replacement operations (arthroplasties) are quite common surgical procedures in Finland, and their demand is growing as the population is ageing. Arthroplasties are increasingly being performed as day surgery without the need for the patient to stay at hospital overnight. Anesthesia plays a key role in successful day surgery in terms of ensuring a safe procedure, proper pain management and fast recovery. Overall, the process calls for multiprofessional collaboration involving the surgeon, anesthesiologist and other healthcare professionals, such as physiotherapists.

Day surgery offers many benefits, including faster recovery at home, lower infection risk, less days at hospital and cost savings. The challenge, however, is how to provide proper pain management without the side effects and prolonged use of opioids. Another aspect to consider is the duration of anesthesia. It is the anesthesiologist’s duty, in collaboration with other team members, to balance these factors and ensure the patient can be discharged safely.

More comfortable and individualised treatment

The aim of our research project is to develop anesthesia and analgesia methods in order to facilitate the possibility for an increasing share of joint replacement surgeries to be performed as day surgery. In practice, we study the following:

New drugs and methods of administration. We will investigate whether an intranasally administered sedative (dexmedetomidine) can reduce post-operation pain and, thus, make the experience more comfortable for the patient.
Current practices in the Nordic countries. We will conduct a questionnaire study to survey the ways of implementing anesthesia and analgesia during joint replacement operations in different Nordic countries and to identify the best practices.
Comparison of anesthetics. We will study if the new anesthetics used in spinal anesthesia (ropivacaine and prilocaine) are better options for patients than the traditional bupivacaine, and whether they help the patients to recover faster after day surgery.
Machine learning as a tool. We will utilise an anonymised register of over 20,000 patients for the purpose of predicting the duration of anesthesia in different patient groups. This will allow for a more individually tailored dosing of anesthetics.

Reducing the burden on healthcare

A joint replacement operation is a major procedure that has a crucial effect on the patient’s mobility and quality of life. Our aim is to optimise the anesthesia and analgesia methods and, thereby, provide a faster and safer recovery for the patient. If we succeed, the benefits will be mutiple:

The patient will be able to sooner return to everyday life with improved mobility.
The risk of developing chronic pain will decrease.
The burden on and costs of healthcare will reduce.

Day surgery is not only a future option, but feasible here and now. By developing anesthesia and analgesia we can ensure that as many patients as possible will benefit from modern surgical methods.

Almost all of our sub-studies are in progress, and the first articles have already been published in international scientific journals (see references below). The first doctoral dissertation within the project was completed in spring 2025, to be followed by several others in the future.

Panu Uusalo, MD, PhD, Adjunct Professor of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, serves as Chief Medical Officer and Head of Department at Turku University Hospital, Surgical hospital, Surgical unit. He is also acting as supervisor for five doctoral candidates.

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