Effects of Combining Electroacupuncture with General Anesthesia Induced by Sevoflurane in Patients Undergoing Supratentorial Craniotomy and Improvements in Their Clinical Recovery Profile & Blood Enkephalin

Abstract

Drug-induced anesthesia combined with electroacupuncture (EA) in patients has been put into practice in recent years in China. In this study, we showed the effectiveness of EA on the speed of post-operative recovery of patients undergoing supratentorial craniotomy and the potential clinical mechanism of EA. Dual channel electrical stimulator made by HANS Beijing connected the following acupoints respectively: LI4 (Hegu), SJ5 (Waiguan), ST36 (Zusanli), BL63 (Jinmen), LR3 (Taichong), and GB40 (Qiuxu). Disperse-dense and symmetric biphasic pulse waves were selected, frequency of waves (pulse rates) were 2Hz/100Hz, altered/3sec; pulse duration was 0.6ms/0.2ms, 2Hz: 0.6ms, 100Hz: 0.2ms; symmetric biphasic pulse wave. We found that the EA-group required 9.62% less sevoflurane than the sham EA-group (P<0.05). During recovery from anesthesia, the autonomous respiration recovery time, tracheo-tube removal time, eye-opening time, voluntary motor recovery time, orientation force recovery time, and the operating-room departure time of the EA-group were all significantly shortened 35.86%, 27.07%, 38.38%, 30.11%, 34.95%, 28.80% than the corresponding sham EA-group, respectively (P<0.05). The serum enkephalin values were elevated in the EA group versus the sham EA-group.