Could intraoperative analgesia attenuate excessive neuroendocrine responses in surgical patients?

Recently, there has been increasing interest among anesthesiologists in the responses to surgical stress because surgical procedures have become more and more invasive. While the responses are natural and protective in themselves, they may have adverse consequences for the patients. There have been many investigations suggesting that anesthetic techniques such as spinal and epidural analgesia may alter the endocrine response. Some measures which block inflammatory reaction are reported to allow modulation of the response.' In the present study preemptive analgesia for postoperative pain using spinal and extradural blockade, and pre-treatment of cyclo-oxygenase inhibitor indomethacin were applied to patients responses were assessed.