HURTING after an operation? The surgeon’s knife might not be the only culprit. It seems that some general anaesthetics worsen post-operative inflammation.
Some anaesthetics cause pain when administered. Isoflurane irritates the respiratory tract when inhaled, for example, and propofol causes inflammation at the puncture site if injected.
To find out whether anaesthetics exacerbate pain after operations, Gerard Ahern of Georgetown University in Washington DC, and colleagues, applied an inflammatory agent to the ears of mice knocked out by two different anaesthetics. They found that mice anaesthetised with isoflurane had more swelling than those with sevoflurane – an anaesthetic which does…
