Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2013
Cervical epidural anesthesia is associated with increased cancer-free survival in laryngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer surgery: a retrospective propensity-matched analysis.
Regional anesthesia preserves perioperative immune competence and may reduce the risk of recurrence and metastasis after cancer surgery. Cervical epidural anesthesia provides adequate analgesia for head and neck cancer surgery, but its impact on cancer recurrence is unknown. ⋯ The association between cervical epidural anesthesia and increased cancer-free survival found in this retrospective study should be an important hypothesis to further investigate in head and neck cancer surgery.