BACKGROUND: Surgical stress causes changes in the composition of white blood cells in peripheral blood. In addition, anesthesia itself has been suggested to have an immunosuppressive effect. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of anesthetic technique on the changes of postoperative peripheral white blood cell (WBC) subsets in laparoscopic cholecystectomy patients and cesarian section patients. METHODS: We reviewed 100 patients who had laparoscopic cholecystectomy under conventional general anesthesia or propofol infusion. Each group contained 50 patients equally. We also reviewed 100 patients who had cesarian section under spinal and epidural anesthesia, 50 patients in each group, respectively. The changes of total WBC, lymphocytes, neutrophils and monocytes at 24 h and 48 h postoperatively were compared to baseline values within the groups and these values were compared between the groups. RESULTS: There were significant increases in total WBC and neutrophils, decreases in lymphocytes, no changes in monocytes at 24 h after surgery compared to baseline values for the groups receiving laparoscopic cholecystectomy. No differences were found between the two laparoscopic cholecystectomy groups. Cesarian section patients showed significant differences in total WBC, neutrophils, lymphocytes and monocytes at 48 h after surgery compared to baseline values for the groups. There were no significant differences between the groups. CONCLUSIONS: Neither laparoscopic cholecystectomy nor cesarian section showed significant differences in WBC subsets after surgery according to anesthetic technique.