To the Editor:
The effect of anesthetic technique on cancer outcomes is of particular interest. Based on the concept that invasiveness of surgery and inflammation may affect cancer recurrence, a recent editorial1 commented that our recent study2 did not explore surgical extent (i.e., breast-conserving surgery vs. total mastectomy). Thus, we performed a subgroup analysis to evaluate the influence of type of anesthesia on cancer recurrence only in patients receiving total mastectomy. In the propensity-matched cohort, the Cox regression analysis revealed that there was no difference in recurrence-free survival between patients receiving intravenous anesthesia and those receiving inhalation anesthesia (table 1). The Kaplan–Meier survival curves also demonstrated no significant differences in long-term outcome between the two groups (fig. 1). Therefore, surgical procedure did not influence the outcomes of total intravenous versus inhalation anesthesia for breast cancer surgery.
Research Support
Support was provided solely from institutional and/or departmental sources.
Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.