Recovery and morbidity after daycase anaesthesia. A comparison of propofol with thiopentone-enflurane with and without alfentanil.

The anaesthetic conditions, recovery and side effects for 48 hours postoperatively were compared after anaesthesia for day surgery using propofol or thiopentone-enflurane with and without alfentanil. Propofol provided good conditions for surgery with faster immediate recovery (p less than 0.001); patients who received it were fit for discharge significantly sooner (p less than 0.001). Visual analogue scores of postoperative wellbeing showed an improvement in both propofol groups (p less than 0.01); after thiopentone and enflurane the scores were reduced and took 2 days to return to the pre-operative values. There was a significant (p less than 0.001) reduction in postoperative morbidity in both the groups that received propofol up to 24 hours after discharge. The addition of alfentanil improved anaesthetic conditions and reduced postoperative morbidity with both propofol and thiopentone-enflurane.