Cardiac Effects of Thoracic Epidural Anesthesia in Clinical Conditions in Patients.

We aim to evaluate the effects of thoracic epidural analgesia on the heart function in human, both during general anesthesia and mechanical ventilation during major abdominal or thoracic surgery or during one-lung ventilation.
Eighty patients provided an 80% power to detect a two-tailed difference of 10% in echocardiographic parameters before and after TEA with an á error of 5% based on an expected standard deviation of 20%.

Four different groups of patients will be studied. All these studies will be performed after approval by the Ethical Commission of the Universitair Ziekenhuis Brussel and written, informed consent of the patients.

Study I: Haemodynamic effects on normal lung-ventilation.

Study II: The effects on two and one-lung ventilation.

Study III: The effects of position during OLV.

Study IV: The effects of right versus left one-lung ventilation in supine position.

We aim to evaluate the effects of thoracic epidural analgesia on the heart function in human, both during general anaesthesia and mechanical ventilation during major abdominal or thoracic surgery or during one-lung ventilation.

1. After intubation;

2. After loading of the TEA;

3. After each sequence of TLV and OLV.

Registration of images and measurements with TEE.