Abstract
Recent evidence has indicated that women wake up earlier than men under propofol anesthesia, but the women examined in the previous reports were mainly premenopausal. We compared gender differences in elderly (60-79 years of age) patients.
Sixty patients (female ; n=30 and male ; n=30) undergoing abdominal surgery were analyzed retrospectively. Induction and maintenance of anesthesia was performed by propofol infusion using a target-controlled infusion system titrated based on a bispectral index (BIS) value between 40-60, and administered along with intravenous vecuronium, buprenorphine and 0.375% epidural ropivacaine. Propofol infusion was stopped at the end of surgery.
There were no significant differences in age (females, 70.9years ; males, 70.6years) , duration of anesthesia (females, 217min ; males, 218min) , propofol consumption (females, 6.1mg/kg/h ; males, 6.0mg/kg/h) , vecuronium (females, 0.07mg/kg/h ; males, 0.08mg/kg/h) , buprenorphine (females, 2.54μg/kg ; males, 2.33μg/kg) or 0.375% ropivacaine (females, 22.3ml ; males, 22.8ml) administered. There were no significant differences in predicted target propofol concentration (females, 2.29μg/ml ; males, 2.28μg/ml) or BIS value (females, 58 ; males, 54) at the end of surgery. Eye-opening time (females, 11.2±4.7min ; males, 12.4±5.8min) and predicted target propofol concentration on awakening (females, 1.36μg/ml ; males, 1.39μg/ml) did not differ significantly by gender.
The women did not wake up significantly faster than the men in elderly patients. We suspect that sex hormones contribute to the significantly earlier recovery of premenopausal women.
