Researchers studied patients who underwent surgery for ovarian cancer. They evaluated those who had optimal surgical debulking for time to tumor recurrence and/or death.
Patients who received intraoperative epidural anesthesia had a mean time to recurrence of 73 months, compared to 33 months for those who received epidural anesthesia postoperatively and 38 months for those who did not receive epidural anesthesia. There were no significant differences between the postoperative epidural and no-epidural groups.
The authors suggest the intraoperative epidural anesthesia’s increased relapse-free period may be due to preservation of the immune system function.
Read the Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine abstract on intraoperative epidural anesthesia’s effect on time to tumor recurrence for ovarian cancer.
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