{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.05165692007797271, 'fraction_numerical': 0.03313840155945419, 'mean_word_length': 4.769662921348314, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Perioperative Paravertebral Regional Anaesthesia and Breast Cancer Recurrence.

AIM
Retrospective and basic science data suggest that perioperative regional anaesthesia (PRA) may reduce tumour recurrence after cancer surgery. This retrospective archive study tested the anti-metastatic effect of PRA.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
We screened the database of the Helsinki University Hospital for patients with breast cancer who had either perioperative paravertebral block (PVB) or sham block (SHAM) in 2000-2003. The exclusion criteria were previous cancer, no cancer, and loss to follow-up. The end-points were disease-free (DFS), distant recurrence-free (DRFS), breast cancer-specific (BCSS) and overall (OS) survival.


RESULTS
The median follow-up time of the 45 PVB and 41 SHAM patients analysed was 12 years. DFS was 79% and 83%, DRFS 84% and 92%, BCSS 81% and 95%, OS 74% and 93% in the PVB and SHAM groups, respectively (p-value for OS = 0.035).


CONCLUSION
The results do not demonstrate any anti-metastatic effect of PRA.