[Possible and proved benefits of peridural analgesia]

Regional anesthesia is supposed to be of some help in improving the outcome of surgical patients. Actually this assumption is largely accepted, even if clear scientific demonstrations have not been obtained. At present there are data showing the advantages, as to survival and complications, especially for major orthopedic surgery. These data have been shown by important and clarifying meta-analyses. Unfortunately, for other types of surgery, advantages have been scarcely demonstrated, due to the low number of patients involved in clinical trials. Anyway, it is underlined that regional anesthesia, and especially epidural block, is much more convenient for the patients than general anesthesia. It seems also convenient from the economic point of view, since the pharmaco-economic studies present in the literature showed the possibility to save money, using regional anesthesia and regional analgesia.