[Anesthesia for funnel chest operation].

The incidence of perioperative complication and days of hospital stay were studied in 56 patients with funnel chest operation under inhalational anesthesia (18 cases), intravenous anesthesia (23 cases) and epidural anesthesia (15 cases). Perioperative complication occurred most frequently in the inhalational group and was followed by intravenous and epidural group. Postoperative hospitalization on an average was 21.4 days in the inhalational group, 21.9 days in the intravenous group and 16.7 days in the epidural group. It is said that postoperative pain leads to splinting of the chest, which can cause atelectasis and/or pneumonia. Severe postoperative pulmonary complication was reduced in the epidural groups. As a result, hospitalization in the epidural group was shorter than in other groups. This study suggests that epidural anesthesia is more advantageous for funnel chest operation because epidural anesthesia has protective action against arrhythmia and postoperative pulmonary complication.