Comparison of Thoracic Epidural and Intravenous Analgesia From the Perspective of Recovery of Respiratory Function at Early Post-thoracotomy Period in Lung Cancer Surgery

lung cancer patients (between ages 18 to 75 and American Society of Anesthesiologists -ASA- Class I to III), undergoing an elective thoracic surgical procedure with posterolateral thoracotomy, were enrolled. The study was approved by the local ethical committee in Yedikule Chest Diseases and Thoracic Surgery Ed. and Research Hospital and therefore had been performed in accordance with global ethical standards. Written informed consent was received from all participants.

Individuals beyond defined age limits, patients who have psychiatric problems, auditory deficit, drug abuse, severe cardiovascular system disorders or severe respiratory depression depicted as having less than 50% of the predicted value of forced expiratory volume were excluded. Patients refusing to give consent and to whom inserting an epidural catheter is contraindicated were not involved either. Surgical procedures were performed by the same team. In the operating room, if serratus anterior muscle could not be spared or chest wall resection was performed, these patients were also excluded even though they had met other qualifications. Finally, patients who could not be extubated before transfer were not involved.

Regarding pre-operative evaluation, age, gender, weight, height, smoking status (package/years) and ASA score of patients were recorded.

For assessing the impact of method of analgesia on target parameters, patients were allocated to TEA and intravenous analgesia (IVA) groups. Randomisation was performed by closed envelope method.

2.2 Features of anesthetic technique and intraoperative analgesia Before the initiation of procedure, in TEA group epidural catheter was inserted by loss of resistance method at the level of T3-T7 with the help of a 18 G Thuohy needle (Pajunk, Geisingen, Germany) while patient was on sitting position. A test dose of 2 ml, 2% Lidocaine HCL was administered through the catheter. Once, efficacy was confirmed, 10 ml bolus dose of 0.1% Bupivacaine was injected. Analgesia maintanence was provided by infusion of 0.1% Bupivacaine (0.1 ml/kg/hour) both intra- and postoperatively for 24 hours.