Journal of clinical anesthesia
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Newer regional anesthesia techniques and minimally invasive surgeries have yielded decreased postoperative pain scores, potentially leading to decreased need for perioperative epidural analgesia. Limited literature is available on trends in usage rates of epidurals. The objective of this study was to identify trends in perioperative epidural analgesia rates among multiple fields of surgery. ⋯ Rates of perioperative epidural analgesia use has decreased in recent years overall, however, among surgeries within the general surgery and vascular surgery specialty, utilization has increased for procedures that have the highest rates of usage.