Effect of epidural morphine-ropivacaine combination bolus versus continuous infusion on pain and IL-6, IL-10 levels in patients undergoing gastrointestinal oncosurgeries - a prospective randomized clinical trial

Adult patients (18–70 years), ASA I–III, scheduled for elective open gastrointestinal cancer surgery will be randomized into two groups of 35 each . Group 1 will receive epidural morphine–ropivacaine as intermittent bolus doses and Group 2 will receive the same combination as continuous epidural infusion. All patients will receive standardized general anaesthesia and multimodal postoperative analgesia.Primary outcomes are Pain scores will be recorded for 48 hours using NRS and  their correlation with inflammatory cytokines(IL -6 and IL -10)levels. Secondary outcomes include rescue analgesia requirement, intraoperative hemodynamics, time to mobilisation, length of hospital stay, and quality of life at 3 months assessed using the FACT-G questionnaire. Study will be Prospective, randomized, open-label, two-arm, parallel-group clinical trial.Duration of study will be 1 yr 6 months .