Anesthesia and the immune system

The effects of both anesthesia and surgical intervention on the defense system have gained importance for patients and anesthetists today. Most of the immune changes seen in patients after surgery are caused either by the direct effect of anesthetic agents or as a result of these drugs contributing to surgical trauma and endocrine response. While the effect of surgery varies according to the size of the operation and the individual's stress response; The effect of anesthesia may vary depending on the breakdown level of the stress response, the immune status of the individual, the time of exposure to the anesthetic agent, the chemical structure of the preparation used and the anesthesia method (1,2,3). Although it has been suggested in many studies that surgical stress may be responsible for immunodepression seen in the postoperative period, some in vitro studies have also observed that anesthetic agents have an effect. The main difficulty in in vivo studies is to distinguish the effects specific to the anesthetic agent and the effects of many intraoperative factors (type-duration of surgery, body temperature, blood and plasma infusions, other diseases, basal immunological status, nutrition) (4,5).