Inhalation anesthesia and stress in children with oncological pathology
Authors: Snisar V.I. , Myronov D.V. 
Published: October 2022

Background. Children with cancer undergo many operations and procedures that require anesthesia in the acute phase of the disease or during remission. An integral element of a safe anesthesia plan is the consideration of direct tumor effects. The localization of the tumor process, the features of the body of a child suffering from cancer, his reaction to a stressful situation force an anesthesiologist to select an anesthetic carefully and consider all possible complications during anesthesia. Many researchers have compared the effects of different analgesics and anesthetics, especially sevoflurane and propofol, namely their effect on pain, ability to prevent or reduce intraoperative stress, as well as the postoperative recovery and adverse complications after various surgical interventions. However, a comparative study of sevoflurane and propofol in the surgical treatment of cancers in children has not been conducted. The aim of the study: to сompare the analgesic and anti-stress effects of inhalation and intravenous anesthesia in children with cancer by studying their hemodynamic response, level of cortisol, proinflammatory cytokines, and heart rate variability indicators. Materials and methods. We have examined forty-nine children with cancer (the first group) who were treated surgically. They were divided into two subgroups depending on the type of anesthetic care — sevoflurane/fentanyl (n = 26) and propofol/fentanyl (n = 23). In the structure of surgical interventions, laparotomy with removal of the tumor prevailed (36 children). Thoracic operations were performed in 13 oncological cases. To compare the characteristics of sevoflurane and propofol in patients with cancer, 49 children (the second group) operated for various traumatological pathologies were included in the examination. Hemodynamic indicators (heart rate, systolic, diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure, pulse pressure), the number of circulating blood cells, including neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets, the level of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor, plasma cortisol were evaluated. The activity of the autonomic nervous system was measured using indicators of heart rate variability. Results. During inhalation and intravenous anesthesia, heart rate and mean arterial pressure had the same direction and decreased in all observed patients, but in children with cancer, mean arterial pressure decreased more with sevoflurane. The level of stress during oncological operations and the use of inhalation anesthesia was lower compared to intravenous anesthesia. Against the background of propofol, the cortisol level in these patients increased to 286.80 nmol/l (interquartile range 244.90–374.50), and during inhalation anesthesia — to 303.20 nmol/l (interquartile range 299.90–398.60; p = 0.0494). Similar dynamics was observed for the level of interleukin-6, the difference in its increase was 7 %. Heart rate variability indicators showed that neither sevoflurane nor propofol changed the power of the low-frequency component of the spectrum. Only in the group of cancer patients, the value of the “very” low-frequency component of the spectrum indicated an increase in the activity of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system after intravenous anesthesia (p < 0.05). Conclusions. It is still not possible to say convincingly about any advantage between inhalation and intravenous anesthesia in reducing the level of intraoperative stress in cancer. The type of the tumor process, its duration, the degree of potentially large physiological disorders should determine the plan of anesthesia and the choice of an appropriate anesthetic.