Assessment of Inflammatory Markers in the Epidural Infusion of Bupivacaine-Fentanyl Compared to Morphine Bolus Injection in Gastrointestinal Cancer Surgeries

Gastrointestinal surgery is one of the procedures that result to produce inflammatory reactions and pain to patients. Administrate of high-safe analgesia in surgery is very essential, to reduce pain and improve inflammatory reactions.

The present study compared inflammatory markers and pain relief with the epidural infusion of bupivacaine-fentanyl and intravenous morphine bolus in gastrointestinal cancer surgeries.

This randomized control clinical trial study was carried out from December 2018 to October 2020, on ASA I and II patients aged between 30-80 years who referred for gastrointestinal cancer surgery. Cases were randomly distributed into two groups. Group I received epidural catheter with bupivacaine (18 cases), and group II received fentanyl and morphine bolus injection (18 cases). On the first and second days post-operation, data on pain scores based on visual analogue scale (VAS) score, inflammatory markers (procalcitonin [PCT] and C-reactive protein [CRP]), platelet (PLT), white blood cells (WBCs), and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) was recorded.

The mean age was 52.21±16.13 years (41.6% male, 58.4 female). The mean of ESR, CRP and PCT postoperative were significantly higher than preoperative (P < 0.05). There were no differences between the two groups regarding PLT, ESR, CRP, and PCT preoperative postoperative (P > 0.05). The mean of pain was less in the epidural group than in the morphine group postoperative (P = 0.02).

The results showed that epidural fentanyl-bupivacaine infusion was more effective in pain reduction than the intravenous infusion of morphine in cases undergoing gastrointestinal cancer operation. However, both analgesic approaches were similar in inflammatory functions.