Elevated plasma histamine concentration as a sensitive real-time parameter for distinct phases of surgical trauma: a tool for technology assessment.

High technology plays an important role in surgery, either to expand surgical procedures or to reduce tissue trauma, which is a main goal of minimum invasive surgery. Due to the tremendous increase of costs the problem of technology assessment will not only be solved by statistical methods, but also by biomedical considerations and laboratory tests. Histamine release could be an indication for tissue trauma, which is caused directly by tissue damage or indirectly by infection or hypoxia. Therefore histamine release was investigated during different phases of operation in two clinically very important and complex situations: resection of liver metastases of colorectal carcinoma and resection…