Epidural anesthesia followed by epidural analgesia produces less inflammatory response than spinal anesthesia followed by intravenous morphine analgesia in patients with total knee arthroplasty

Abstract

Our results show that epidural anesthesia followed by epidural analgesia produced less inflammatory response compared with spinal anesthesia followed by intravenous morphine analgesia in patients operated on with total knee arthroplasty, and that the most sensitive markers of those investigated were the CD11b and CD62l leucocyte activation molecules.