BACKGROUND: Whether the patients can successfully recover is related to many factors, among which immune factor is an important one. Cytokine is a major component for immune function and also a research hotspot in recent years. Mental stimulation, anesthesia stimulation, real stimulation in surgery, and anesthesia reaction stimulation after surgery can lead to a change in patients’ body cytokines, which affects the patient’s recovery.
OBJECTIVE: To review the influence of transplant surgery and anesthesia stress on the activity of body cytokines.
METHODS: A computer search was performed for relative articles in Wanfang, VIP, Qikan, and CNKI databases from January 2005 to October 2010. The key words are “surgery, anesthesia, cytokines” in Chinese and English. There were altogether 26 documents retrieved.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: There were 26 relative literature retrieved, with one involving the basic theory, 19 about surgery, and 6 related to anesthesia. It is found that surgery can cause imbalance of body cytokines, especially with interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, IL-1, IL-2, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α changing (increased) significantly. Compared with conventional surgery, the change of cytokines in laparoscopic surgery is relatively not obvious, which indicates cytokine changes are related to the degree of body damage. Anesthesia can also lead to imbalance of the body cytokines, mainly with IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α changing (increased), while epidural anesthesia has no obvious effect on cytokines. Surgery, trauma and general anesthesia can lead to cytokine imbalance, thus affecting the immune system and endocrine system, etc, and further influencing the rehabilitation of the body. Epidural anesthesia/epidural anesthesia assists other narcotic effect on cytokine balance in the body less. In clinical surgery work, we should try to choose a small trauma and surgical method during anesthesia.