The Impact of Total Intravenous Propofol Anaesthesia versus Sevoflurane Anaesthesia on Perioperative Pain in Patients Undergoing Colonic Cancer Surgery

Background: Cancer colon is one of the most common malignancies. After colon cancer surgery patients may experience severe pain. Several studies have reported that a significant decrease in postoperative pain with propofol while other studies have showed this effect was not significant. Aim: Our goal was to assess the effect of combined epidural anaesthesia either with propofol or sevoflurane on intraoperative fentanyl consumption and postoperative pain in patients undergoing open surgical resection of colon cancer. Patients and Methods: 48 adult patients suffering from cancer colon scheduled for open surgical resection randomly allocated either to receive epidural-propofol by total intra venous anaesthesia (TIVA) (n = 24) or epidural-sevoflurane anaesthesia (n = 24), intraoperative heart rate and fentanyl consumption and postoperative pain score (verbal analogue scale, 0 - 10) were recorded. Results: In our study we found that the intensity of postoperative pain was low in all patients and the propofol based anaesthesia had relatively lower pain scores up to 24 hrs postoperatively in comparison to sevoflurane based anaesthesia, intraoperative fentanyl consumption was lower with sevoflurane and heart rate lower with propofol group. Conclusions: we recommend that use of multimodal analgesia decrease postoperative pain in all cancer colon patients undergoing open surgery who anaesthetized with either propofol or sevoflurane. Also use of propofol showed better analgesic outcomes postoperatively.