Postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing thoracotomy: A comparison between total intravenous anesthesia and inhalation anesthesia

Objective: Propofol is more effective than inhalational anesthesia; however, the results for the management of acute pain remain controversial. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the incidence of acute pain after inhalation anesthesia and total intravenous anesthesia among patients who underwent thoracotomy at our hospital. Methods: We conducted a single center retrospective observational study using data from electronic medical records. Sixty patients aged ≥20 years with American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status class I or II who underwent regular and emergency thoracotomy between January 1, 2016, and January 1, 2020, at Chungbuk National University Hospital were included in this study. The anesthesia and postoperative pain records of those who received total intravenous anesthesia (n=30) and inhalation anesthesia (n=30) were retrospectively reviewed. The pain score on the numeric rating scale (NRS) was evaluated at 2, 8, 24, and 30 hours postoperatively. Results: The average NRS score of patients who received total intravenous anesthesia was lesser than that of those who received inhalational anesthesia. Moreover, the difference in the NRS scores at eight hours postoperatively was statistically significant (P <0.05). Patients who received inhalational anesthesia had a higher pain score and experienced more severe pain than those who received intravenous anesthesia. Conclusions: Total intravenous anesthesia with propofol-remifentanil provided better analgesia for acute postoperative pain in patients who underwent thoracotomy than inhalational anesthesia, suggesting it may be considered the combination of choice for thoracic surgery.Abbreviations: ASA: American Society of Anesthesiologists, CRTS: Chronic post-thoracotomy pain syndrome, GABA: Gamma-aminobutyric acid, IL: Interleukin, NRS: numeric rating scale.doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.40.10.9907How to cite this: Lee JY, Jeong ST, Hwang JH, Park SH. Postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing thoracotomy: A comparison between total intravenous anesthesia and inhalation anesthesia. Pak J Med Sci. 2024;40(10):2219-2222. doi: https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.40.10.9907This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.