Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Mar 2013
The effects of anesthetics on chronic pain after breast cancer surgery.
The incidence and predictive factors for chronic pain after breast cancer surgery have been widely studied. Because it negatively affects patients' daily lives, methods to prevent and reduce chronic pain and its severity should be developed. Our previous study showed that propofol anesthesia has an antihyperalgesic effect under remifentanil-induced hyperalgesia and reduced acute pain compared with sevoflurane anesthesia. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that propofol would prevent the development and severity of chronic pain after breast cancer surgery, as in acute pain. ⋯ This study showed that propofol anesthesia was associated with a lower incidence of chronic pain after breast cancer surgery than sevoflurane anesthesia. However, propofol did not have a significant effect on severity and duration of chronic pain. Further prospective studies are needed to confirm the validity of these provocative findings.