Anesthesia and Cancer Recurrence: A New Sight

Dear Colleagues,

Surgery remains the best curative treatment for solid tumors. However, the direct manipulation of the tumor by the surgeon releases circulating tumor cells responsible for future metastases in distant organs. Moreover, acute pain and inflammation promote surgical stress inducing the release of inflammatory cytokines and neuroendocrine hormones, which negatively impact the immune system and contribute to an increase in relapses. Surprisingly, some retrospective studies observed that local anesthetics or intravenous hypnotics injected during oncological interventions improve the overall survival, while opioids and volatiles seem to favor second lesions and recurrences. These readouts seem to be confirmed in several preclinical investigations, and anesthetic protocols could impact oncological prognosis. Nevertheless, further evidence is required to confirm this hypothesis.

This Special Issue accepts all manuscripts that deal with analgesia, anesthesia, and surgery from basic to clinical research (original article, systematic review, etc.) and that address the recent findings highlighting the benefits, the difficulties, and the future of anesthesia management during the perioperative oncological surgery.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Future perspectives for anesthesia management during oncological surgery;
• Mechanisms of action of anesthetics on tumor cells;
• Indications and limits of opioid-free anesthesia;
• Advantages and side effects of opioids;
• Local and regional anesthesia and relapses;
• Advanced strategies to control surgical pain and avoid residual tumor cells;
• Mini-invasive procedure and recurrences;
• Surgical stress and recurrences.

Dr. Lucillia Bezu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• analgesia
• anesthesia
• cancer
• immunity
• local and regional anesthesia
• opioid
• recurrence
• stress
• surgery
• volatile