NCT01716065

Regional Anesthesia Versus General Anesthesia on Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC)

Impact of Regional Anesthesia Versus General Anesthesia on Immune Modulation and Clearance of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) in Subjects Undergoing Surgery for Primary Nonmetastatic Breast Cancer

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 12 (actual)
• Sponsor: Defense and Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 85 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The purpose of the study is to determine whether the type of anesthesia during breast cancer surgery has any impact on the way a patient's immune system functions for a brief period after surgery. If the investigators find that one type of anesthesia versus the other is more beneficial to a patient's immune system, then the investigators may use this information to design a larger study to exam the effect of anesthesia better.

Detailed description

There are two different types of anesthesia that the investigators can use for subjects undergoing breast surgery. The first type is called "general anesthesia" (GA) which is when a person "goes to sleep" with a breathing tube and then receives intravenous (IV) pain medicine during and after surgery to minimize surgical pain. The other type of anesthesia is called "regional anesthesia" (RA), or "nerve blocks" which numb up the nerves that supply the breast area. By doing this type of anesthesia, subjects often don't go "to sleep" with a breathing tube, instead, they get heavy IV sedation and take a "deep nap" during the surgery.

Conditions

• Breast Cancer

Timeline

• Start date: 2012-06-01
• Primary completion: 2013-05-01
• First posted: 2012-10-29
• Last updated: 2014-04-30

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States