Change of the temperature balance of the brain in various types of general anesthesia

Abstract

Under the influence of general anesthesia various functions of the body can change depending on the main and concomitant diseases, the type and volume of the surgical intervention. General anesthesia is traditionally associated with the loss of normal thermoregulatory mechanisms. The intracranial temperature of 32 patients were measured in this study. These patients were divided into 3 groups depending on the type of general anesthesia. The brain temperature of all patients were measured by recording the strength of the electromagnetic radiation from deep brain tissues and also, the axillary and tympanic temperatures were measured. According to the thermometry results of the brain, it was evident that when using Propofol, the temperature of the brain during anesthesia decreased by 1.21 ± 0.19 °C. During the maintenance of inhalational anesthesia the temperature of the brain decreased by 0.69 ± 0.15 °C. There was a decrease of brain temperature in all patients from all 3 groups and the temperature gradient of the brain/axillary region increased. Therefore, we concluded that the decrease in brain temperature occurs not only because of thermoregulatory center temperature decrease, but also because of reduced brain metabolism and/or cerebral blood flow. Propofol in a greater degree causes brain temperature decrease which may be important for the prevention or treatment of conditions that are accompanied by an increase in brain temperature or perfusion-metabolic balance disturbances (for example in neuroanesthesiology and in operations on the main cerebral vessels).