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Background: Surgery induces a temporal change in the immune system, which might be modified by regional anesthesia. Applying a bilateral preoperative anterior quadratus lumborum block has proven to be a safe and effective technique in pain management after abdominal and retroperitoneal surgery, but the effect on the immune response is not thoroughly investigated. Methods: This study is a substudy of a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial of patients undergoing laparoscopic hemicolectomy due to colon cancer. Twenty-two patients were randomized to undergo either a bilateral anterior quadratus lumborum nerve block with a total of 60 mL ropivacaine 0.375% or placebo with corresponding isotonic saline injections. The main objective of this exploratory substudy was to investigate the systemic immune response in the first postoperative day by examining changes in blood transcript levels (n=750) and stimulated secretion of cytokines (n=17) on ex vivo activation with microbial ligands and anti-CD3/CD28. Results: Using unsupervised data analysis tools, we observed no effect of the bilateral anterior quadratus lumborum nerve block on gene expression in immune cells (permutational multivariate analysis of variance using distance matrices: F=0.52, p=0.96), abundances of major immune cell populations (Wilcoxon rank-sum test: p>0.05), and stimulated cytokine secretion (Wilcoxon rank-sum test: p>0.05). Conclusions: Our study provides evidence that administration of bilateral anterior quadratus lumborum nerve block as a part of a multimodal analgesic regimen in an enhanced recovery after surgery for laparoscopic hemicolectomy in this cohort does not alter the systemic immune response. Trial registration number [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Surgical stress may lead to postsurgical hypercoagulability, endothelial dysfunction and systemic inflammation, which can impact on patient recovery. Remote ischaemic preconditioning is a procedure that activates the body's endogenous defences against ischaemia and reperfusion injury. Studies have suggested that remote ischaemic preconditioning has antithrombotic, antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effects. The hypothesis was that remote ischaemic preconditioning reduces surgery-induced systemic stress response. Method During a 24-month period (2019–2021), adult patients undergoing subacute laparoscopic cholecystectomy due to acute cholecystitis were randomized to remote ischaemic preconditioning or control. Remote ischaemic preconditioning was performed less than 4 h before surgery on the upper arm. It consisted of four cycles of 5 min ischaemia and 5 min reperfusion. The gene expression of 750 genes involved in inflammatory processes, oxidative stress and endothelial function was investigated preoperatively and 2–4 h after surgery in both groups. In addition, changes in 20 inflammation- and vascular trauma–associated proteins were assessed preoperatively, 2–4 h after surgery and 24 h after surgery. Results A total of 60 patients were randomized. There were no statistically significant differences in gene expression 2–4 h after surgery between the groups (P > 0.05). Remote ischaemic preconditioning did not affect concentrations of circulating proteins up to 24 h after surgery (P > 0.05). Conclusion The study did not demonstrate any effect of remote ischaemic preconditioning on expression levels of the chosen genes or in circulating immunological cytokines and vascular trauma–associated proteins up to 24 h after subacute laparoscopic cholecystectomy in patients with acute cholecystitis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]