To the editor: is the serum level of reactive oxygen metabolites appropriate for evaluating short-term surgical stress of patients undergoing colectomy?

To demonstrate whether reactive oxygen and free radical measuring are appropriate to evaluate short-term surgical stress after laparoscopic colectomy. The subjects consisted of 22 cases (laparoscopic surgery, 16; and laparotomy, 6) that underwent surgery for colon cancer. The reactive oxygen metabolites (ROM) value in the blood were measured perioperatively. The average ROM values immediately prior to surgery, immediately following surgery, and 1 day following surgery were 360.1, 316.0, and 346.7 U.CARR, respectively, meaning that ROM declined immediately following surgery compared with immediately prior to surgery (P < 0.05), while a tendency was observed for these values to increase again 1 day following surgery. In the comparison of pain control 1 day following surgery, a significantly lower value was indicated in the epidural anesthesia group (n = 12) compared with the fentanyl intravenous injection group (n = 10). Moreover, no significant change was observed in the surgical stress level in a comparison of patient background items such as age, sex, and so forth, laparoscopic surgery, and laparotomy. The low-invasiveness of laparoscopic surgery was not indicated in the ROM value 1 day following surgery, probably because pain control offsets the level of surgical stress using this method.