[Epidural analgesia in combination with general anesthesia].

Epidural anaesthesia is a widely used and accepted technique for perioperative analgesia in different kinds of surgery. Apart from analgetic effect and due to wide positve effects on patients outcome epidural analgesia is often used with general anaesthesia. It represents a reliable and reversible neural deafferentation technique that effectively contributes to a reduction of the surgical stress response with subsequent positive effects on cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, and immune function. Animal studies suggest that the use of epidural anaesthesia may be beneficial for cancer surgery because of less tumour recurrence. Further, a benefit is expected in patient's mortality. This article summarizes and critically discusses the current knowledge on the effects of epidural anaesthesia on pain management, cardiopulmonary as well as gastrointestinal functions and patient's outcome.