Postoperative pain may be affected by general anaesthetics. The effect of propofol and sevoflurane on postoperative pain in chinese female patients has not been demonstrated before. This study compared the postoperative pain score in patients under general anaesthesia maintained with propofol,sevoflurane, or sevoflurane+propofol.

After approval from the Institute's Ethics Committee, this study was conducted at Tongji Hospital, a general university teaching hospital with 2500 beds in Wuhan, China.The study consisted of female patients, American Society of Anaesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA-PS) I or II, suffering from infertilities, and undergoing selective gynaecological laparoscopic and hysteroscopic surgery. All the patients were randomly assigned to receive propofol,sevoflurane,or sevoflurane+propofol for anaesthesia maintenance. The primary outcome measure was the level of postoperative pain assessed by Numerical Analogue Scale (NAS) at rest 0.5 hour after the operation. The secondary outcomes were postoperative pain assessed by Numerical Analogue Scale (NAS) at rest 1 and 24 hour after the operation, the incidence of postoperative nausea and vomiting, the incidence of shiver, and quality of recovery determined by QOR40 in the first 24 h after surgery.