Consequences of Postoperative Alterations in Respiratory Mechanics

Usefulness of epidural anesthesia in gynecologic laparoscopic surgery for infertility in comparison to general anesthesia

“…The decrease in %VC and shallow respiration may be induced by pain stimulation because postoperative pain scores with general anesthesia were significantly higher than those with epidural anesthesia. Similar postoperative impairment of lung function is well-known in open surgery under general anesthesia [1,5].…”

Gallbladder bed irrigation with bupivacaine improves pulmonary functions after laparoscopic cholecystectomy

“…Because of pain, patients breathe rapidly with a small volume and are unable to inspire deeply at postoperative period [9,10]. This is due to decreased excursion of the diaphragm.…”

Effect of effort pain after upper abdominal surgery on two independent measures of respiratory function

“…Upper abdominal surgery has long been recognized to produce more respiratory functional impairment than lower abdominal surgery [5,13,14,17]. Likewise, the smaller incisions following laparoscopic surgery induce much smaller impairments of respiratory function and less pain [18][19][20].…”

“…We used data from three studies of FVC improvements spanning three postoperative days [13][14][15] to determine study sample size. We further anticipated a patient dropout rate of 20% (twice that of patients undergoing lower abdominal surgery [16]).…”