Opioid-Free Anesthesia and Postoperative Outcomes in Cancer Surgery: A Systematic Review.

Background: Surgery is an essential component of the treatment of solid tumors, but the perioperative course can be complicated by different factors (including anesthesia). Opioid-free anesthesia (OFA) may mitigate adverse outcomes of opioid-based anesthesia (OBA), but major questions remain on the actual impact in terms of analgesia and the improvement of surgical outcomes. To address this issue, we present a systematic review to evaluate the efficacy of OFA compared to OBA in the specific subset of cancer patients undergoing surgery.