![]() If the new findings hold up, they’ll have even more reasons to give patients as little anesthesia as necessary - and to take additional measures to protect patients. “What we’re now starting to learn is maybe there is a zone that we’ve always accepted as fine before that may have some subtle effects that we didn’t know about before,” Gaba says.Īlthough doctors must be able to blunt pain, keep a patient from moving and block awareness and memory during surgery, they also must be able to awaken the patient soon after the surgery. Sicker, older and obese people may be at more risk for death longer after surgery. Then there’s the anesthesia, perhaps blood transfusions, and usually hypothermia (low body temperature) during surgery - all of which can rattle the immune system in a profound way. Surgery itself causes pain, stress and anxiety, Meiler notes. “What some people suspect - but there is still not much evidence for - is there could be people whose inflammation processes don’t come back to normal after surgery but stay revved up for a very long time.” “Neither surgery nor anesthesia is a natural thing,” Gaba says. ![]() That data was presented last fall at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting. Monk, a professor of anesthesiology at Duke who led the study. Since the first studies were published, newer research has suggested that non-cardiac surgery with anesthesia also can cause a cognitive decline in some elderly people up to two years after the surgery, says Dr. Inflammation is known to worsen many diseases, including heart disease, cancer, even dementia. Some experts suggest that anesthesia and surgery may ignite a cascade of inflammation in the body that can aggravate heart, respiratory, cancer conditions or dementia.Īccording to the leading theory - just a hypothesis for now - surgery and anesthesia trigger the release of stress hormones, such as norepinephrine, that in turn activate inflammatory responses in the body and undermine the workings of the immune system. But they don’t agree on the precise cause. So far, doctors seem to agree that the long-term effects of surgery and anesthesia can lead to deaths. Surgery experts and anesthesiologists met in Washington, D.C., last fall and at smaller regional meetings since then to discuss the findings and plan research that could answer their questions. Meiler, vice chairman for research in the department of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at the Medical College of Georgia. “The idea that what we do in the operating room may impact outcomes in our patients weeks, months or years down the road is exciting,” says Dr. The patients in the Duke study underwent major, non-cardiac surgery with general anesthesia, and again, deaths in the first year after surgery were primarily from heart attacks or cancer. The other study, published in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia in January by Duke University researchers, found that longer amounts of time spent under deep sedation increased the risk of death in the year following surgery. Although the patients in the study were undergoing non-cardiac surgery, most deaths resulted from heart attacks or cancer. One study, presented last fall at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting by Swedish researchers, showed that the duration spent under deep anesthesia is a significant risk factor for predicting death up to two years after surgery.
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