Opioids used to have its irreplaceable role in standard opioid-based anesthesia, yet with the help of hypnotics, local anesthetics, anti-inflammatory drugs, α-2 agonists and epidural techniques, opioid-free anesthesia (OFA) has been proved to be safe and feasible for non-cardiac major surgeries. Opioid-sparing anesthesia (OSA) is encouraged by the needs of enhanced recovery and recommended by the latest guidelines for anesthesia of lung surgery. According to previous studies, both opioid-sparing and opioid-free anesthesia would reduce the incidence of opioid-related adverse events and speed up the postoperative recovery to some extent, yet no studies ever are dedicated to compare these two different techniques.
