Previous experimental and clinical studies have shown that anesthetic agents have varying effects on cancer prognosis; however, the results were inconsistent among these studies.

The authors compared overall and recurrence-free survival in patients given volatile or intravenous anesthesia for digestive tract cancer surgery.

The authors selected patients who had elective esophagectomy, gastrectomy, hepatectomy, cholecystectomy, pancreatectomy, colectomy, and rectal cancer surgery from July 2010 to March 2018 using the Japanese Diagnosis Procedure Combination database.

Patients were divided into a volatile anesthesia group (desflurane, sevoflurane, or isoflurane with/without nitrous oxide) and a propofol-based total intravenous anesthesia group.

The authors hypothesized that total intravenous anesthesia is associated with greater overall and recurrence-free survival than volatile anesthesia. Subgroup analyses were performed for each type of surgery.