Epidural anesthesia followed by epidural analgesia produces less inflammatory response than spinal anesthesia followed by intravenous morphine analgesia in patients with total knee arthroplasty

Background Anesthesia and inflammatory response have been studied in major abdominal and thoracic surgical procedures, but not in major orthopaedic reconstructive procedures such as total knee arthroplasty. Most studies have compared general anesthesia with epidural anesthesia, but none has compared epidural with spinal.