ORIGINAL ARTICLE   Free access

Minerva Anestesiologica 2019 November;85(11):1175-83

DOI: 10.23736/S0375-9393.19.13598-5

Copyright © 2019 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Effects of the anesthesia technique used during cesarean section on maternal-neonatal thiol disulfide homeostasis

Fatma AKIN ¹, Betul KOZANHAN ² ✉, Cigdem D. DENIZ ³, Osman SAHIN ², Halime GOKTEPE ⁴, Salim NESELIOGLU ⁵, Ozcan EREL ⁵

¹ Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Erzurum Training and Research Hospital, Erzurum, Turkey; ² Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation, Konya Training and Research Hospital, Konya, Turkey; ³ Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Konya Training and Research Hospital, Konya, Turkey; ⁴ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Clinic, Konya Training and Research Hospital, Konya, Turkey; ⁵ Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey

BACKGROUND: Thiols are organic compounds consisting of a sulfhydryl group which exerts antioxidant effects via dynamic thiol-disulfide homeostasis (TDH). The shift towards the disulfide states signals an oxidative situation. Maternal-neonatal oxidative stress can be affected by the anesthetic technique used during cesarean section. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between the type of anesthesia used and the maternal-neonatal TDH.
METHODS: ASA I-II, term parturients undergoing elective cesarean section either under general (Group G) or spinal (Group S) anesthesia were included. Blood specimens were collected preoperatively and postoperatively from the mothers and from the umbilical venous cords at delivery. TDH was studied by a new method developed by the authors (O.E. and S.N.).
RESULTS: Postoperative mother’s native thiol, total thiol, disulfide/total thiol, native thiol/ disulfide and disulfide levels were higher in Group G than in Group S. There was no significant difference between the groups in umbilical venous cord albumin, native thiol/total thiol, disulfide, native thiol/ disulfide and total thiol/ disulfide. However, in Group G, umbilical venous cord native thiol and total thiol levels were statistically significantly lower than those in Group S.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that general anesthesia in cesarean section leads to an impairment in TDH when compared with spinal anesthesia. Oxidative stress might be modified by the preferred anesthetic technique.

KEY WORDS: Cesarean section; Oxidative stress; Sulfhydryl compounds; Spinal anesthesia; General anesthesia