BACKGROUND: Combined spinal epidural (CSE) anesthesia has become the technique of anesthesia for cesarean section. We attempted to find the most suitable spinal and epidural local anesthetic doses providing high quality analgesia and minimal side effects during CSE anesthesia. METHODS: Thirty nine parturients were divided into 3 groups by dose of local anesthetics. The dose of 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine for spinal anesthesia were 6mg (group 1), 4 mg (group 2) and 2 mg (group 3) and 2% lidocaine for epidural anesthesia were 100 mg (group 1), 200 mg (group 2) and 300 mg (group 3). RESULTS: The number of request of analgesics during operation were 2 in group 1, 1 in group 2 and 3 in group 3. Group 3 had higher incidence of hypotension than other groups. The time to T4 level block were faster in group 1 and 2 than group 3. CONCLUSIONS: The CSE technique using 0.5% hyperbaric bupivacaine 4mg for subarachnoid and 2% lidocaine 200mg for epidural is most suitable for rapid onset, sufficient analgesia and few side effects in this study.