Anesthetics and IBD
A recent experimental study has investigated the possible therapeutic effects of local anesthetics on IBD.
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a disease of the gastrointestinal tract, mainly the intestines, that may occur in those people who have genetic potential combined with environmental factors. There has been no definitive medical treatment and drugs usually just relieve the symptoms.
Local anesthetics are used to locally desensitize the tissues to allow surgical interventions. However, their mechanism of action is based on their potential to inhibit neuronal activity in the area. Since it is proposed that IBD may be a result of imbalance in the autonomic neurons of the colon, local anesthetics have the potential to reduce the inflammation at the site of the colon that are affected by IBD.
A research article published in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this problem. In a recent experimental study, investigators from Uludag University School of Medicine, Bursa, Turkey investigated the possible therapeutic effects of local anesthetics on IBD. They topically applied levobupivacaine, (a novel, long lasting local anesthetic with less systemic side effects) onto the colonic mucosa of rats that had experimentally induced IBD.
The researchers used some scoring systems that evaluated the inflammation at the site of drug application. They compared the local anesthetics to saline solution. They found some improvement in the degree of macroscopic inflammation at the areas where local anesthetics were applied; however, those findings were not supported by microscopic findings. Nevertheless, researchers concluded that local anesthetics might have potential therapeutic effects on IBD based on their findings.
Source:
World Journal of Gastroenterology