Does epidural anaesthesia and analgesia really improves surgical outcome after colorectal cancer surgery?

Abstract

Lithuanian Cancer Register has registered 1443 new cases of colorectal cancer in 2004 and this value constantly increases about 200 cases per year. Colorectal cancer is on the third place among all cancer patients in our country. Colorectal cancer surgery is associated with a major surgical trauma. Majority of recent randomized clinical trials (RCT) has shown that combined general--epidural anaesthesia and postoperative epidural analgesia has demonstrated some beneficial effects and improved surgical outcome in various fields of surgery. However controversies still exist about epidural anaesthesia and analgesia effects on colorectal anastomosis and it's influence on patients' outcome.