We studied 22 patients undergoing total intravenous anaesthesia for both abdominal and superficial surgery. Anaesthesia has been induced and maintained with propofol (1 mg/kg in 20 seconds; 10 mg/kg/h for 10 minutes; 8 mg/kg/h for 10 minutes; 6 mg/kg/h until the end of the operation) and alfentanil (15 mg/kg before the induction and boli of 10-30 mg/kg in the presence of insufficient surgical analgesia). All the patients have been intubated after the administration of vecuronium 0.1 mg/kg, and artificially ventilated with air and oxygen (FiO2 0.4). We observed: 1) haemodynamic stability after the intubation and during surgery; 2) easy control of surgical analgesia; 3) early postoperative recovery, with no correlation with the doses of propofol and alfentanil; 4) absence of postoperative respiratory depression; 5) intraoperative amnesia; 6) low incidence of postoperative side effects. We conclude that, by virtue of the pharmacokinetic characteristics of propofol and alfentanil, most limitations of total intravenous anaesthesia have been overcome.