Metabolic and oxidative effects of sevoflurane and propofol in children undergoing surgery for congenital heart disease.

Purpose: To evaluate the metabolic and oxidative effects of sevoflurane and propofol in children undergoing surgery for correction of congenital heart disease.

Methods: Twenty children with acyanotic congenital heart disease, scheduled for elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass, age range 1 day to 14 years were randomly assigned to 2 groups: Group GP, programmed to receive total intravenous anesthesia with propofol and group GS scheduled to use balanced anesthesia with sevoflurane. Exclusion criteria were cyanotic heart disease or complex, association with other malformations, severe systemic diseases, infection or children undergoing treatment and palliative or emergency surgery. Blood samples were collected at three different time-points: T0, after radial artery cannulation, T1, 30 minutes after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) launch and T2, at the end of procedure. Parameters analyzed included thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance (TBARS), glutathione (GLN), lactate and pyruvate plasmatic concentrations.

Results: TBARS, GSH, lactate and pyruvate concentrations did not change significantly by Friedman´s test. Lactate/pyruvate ratio (L/P) was >10 in both groups. There was a moderate Pearson correlation for TBARS, in T1 (r=0.50; p=0.13) e T2 (r=0.51;p=0.12). Pearson correlation was high between groups during CPB (T1) for lactate (r=0.68; p=0.02), pyruvate (r=0.75; p=0.01) and L/P ratio (r=0.83; p=0.003).

Conclusion: Anesthetic techniques investigated in this study showed a similar pattern, with no increase in metabolic substrates and oxidative stress during surgical correction of congenital heart defects in non-cyanotic children.