• Jeong-Ae Lim, Chung-Sik Oh, Tae-Gyoon Yoon, Ji Yeon Lee, Seung-Hyun Lee, Young-Bum Yoo, Jung-Hyun Yang, and Seong-Hyop Kim.
• Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain medicine, Konkuk University Medical Centre, Konkuk University School of Medicine, 120-1 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul, 05030, Republic of Korea.
• Bmc Cancer. 2018 Feb 7; 18 (1): 159.

BackgroundTo clarify the effect of anaesthetic agents on cancer immunity, we evaluated the effects of propofol and sevoflurane on natural killer (NK) cell, cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) counts and apoptosis rate in breast cancer and immune cells co-cultures from patients who underwent breast cancer surgery.MethodsVenous blood samples were collected after inducing anaesthesia and at 1 and 24 h postoperatively in patients who had undergone breast cancer surgery. The patients were allocated randomly to the propofol- or sevoflurane-based anaesthesia groups. We counted and detected apoptosis in cancer cell, NK cell and CTL of patients with breast cancer by co-culture with a breast cancer cell line in both groups. We also evaluated changes in the cytokines tumour necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-10 during the perioperative period.ResultsForty-four patients were included in the final analysis. No difference in NK cell count, CTL count or apoptosis rate was detected between the groups. Furthermore, the number of breast cancer cells undergoing apoptosis in the breast cancer cell co-cultures was not different between the groups. No changes in cytokines were detected between the groups.ConclusionAlthough basic science studies have suggested the potential benefits of propofol over a volatile agent during cancer surgery, propofol was not superior to sevoflurane, on the aspects of NK and CTL cells counts with apoptosis rate including breast cancer cell, during anaesthesia for breast cancer surgery in a clinical environment.Trial RegistrationNCT02758249 on February 26, 2016.

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