Background
Renal dysfunction following intraoperative arterial hypotension is mainly caused by an insufficient renal blood flow. It is associated with higher mortality and morbidity rates. We hypothesised that the intraoperative haemodynamics are more stable during xenon anaesthesia than during isoflurane anaesthesia in patients undergoing partial nephrectomy.
Methods
We performed a secondary analysis of the haemodynamic variables collected during the randomised, single-blinded, single-centre PaNeX study, which analysed the postoperative renal function in 46 patients who underwent partial nephrectomy. The patients received either xenon or isoflurane anaesthesia with 1:1 allocation ratio. We analysed the duration of the intraoperative systolic blood pressure decrease by > 40% from baseline values and the cumulative duration of a mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) of < 65 mmHg as primary outcomes. The secondary outcomes were related to other blood pressure thresholds, the amount of administered norepinephrine, and the analysis of confounding factors on the haemodynamic stability.
Results
The periods of an MAP of < 65 mmHg were significantly shorter in the xenon group than in the isoflurane group. The medians [interquartile range] were 0 [0–10.0] and 25.0 [10.0–47.5] minutes, for the xenon and isoflurane group, respectively (
P
= 0.002). However, the cumulative duration of a systolic blood pressure decrease by > 40% did not significantly differ between the groups (
P
= 0.51). The periods with a systolic blood pressure decrease by 20% from baseline, MAP decrease to values < 60 mmHg, and the need for norepinephrine, as well as the cumulative dose of norepinephrine were significantly shorter and lower, respectively, in the xenon group. The confounding factors, such as demographic data, surgical technique, or anaesthesia data, were similar in the two groups.
Conclusion
The patients undergoing xenon anaesthesia showed a better haemodynamic stability, which might be attributed to the xenon properties. The indirect effect of xenon anaesthesia might be of importance for the preservation of renal function during renal surgery and needs further elaboration.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov
: NCT01839084. Registered 24 April 2013.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (10.1186/s12871-019-0799-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.