The effect of thoracic epidural analgesia on postoperative stress and morbidity

A hundred patients scheduled for cholecystectomy were randomized to either thoracic epidural anaesthesia and analgesia for 24 h with bupivacaine intraoperatively about 100 mg and 15 mg/h thereafter (TEA) for postoperative analgesia, TEA combined with general anaesthesia (low dose fentanyl) (TEA + GA) and general anaesthesia (GA) (low dose fentanyl). During TEA and TEA + GA the arterial pressure was significantly decreased as compared with GA. TEA was associated by an intense haemodilution in comparison with GA. Blood glucose and plasma cortisol responses were significantly suppressed by TEA. The decreases in peripheral blood lymphocyte and eosinophilic counts observed after operation under GA was significantly reduced by TEA. The increase in the neutrophil count was inhibited by TEA but the increase in non-filamented neutrophils was significantly augmented by TEA. The postoperative alleviation of the alteration of the above mentioned parameters by TEA was slightly diminished in the TEA + GA group. However, we found no significant reduction in cardiac dysrhythmias (TEA 7%, TEA + GA 7% and GA 10%), ST-segment depression (TEA 17%), TEA + GA 3.3% and GA 12.5%), wound complication (TEA 3%, TEA + GA 0%, GA 0%), pneumonia (TEA 3%, TEA + GA 3% and GA 0%), subphrenic abscess (TEA 6%, TEA + GA 0%, GA 3%), mortality (TEA 0%, TEA + GA 3%, GA 0%), and urinary tract infect (TEA 17%, TEA + GA 7% and GA 2.5%). Since an equal number of patients in each group, about 30%, suffered one or more of the postoperative complications this epidural analgesia was not effective in reducing postoperative morbidity albeit the significant alleviation of the postoperative stress response.