Patients were randomly allocated to one of two groups: only etomidate in group E (n=27) and spinal anesthesia combined with etomidate in group SE (n=21) using a randomization table. Patients in the SE group received spinal anesthesia first, and bilateral sensory anesthesia level was confirmed to remain at the T4-T6 level. After confirmation of the level of sensory anesthesia, the administration of etomidate was conducted. The etomidate (Nhwa Pharmaceutical, Jiangsu, China) starting dose of E group and SE group is 0.105 mg/kg and 0.089mg/kg, respectively. The dose of etomidate used for next patient was determined according to the response of the previously tested patient using the up-and-down method. If the patient lose consciousness, the dose of etomidate was reduced by one dose gradient for the next patient, and if didn't lose consciousness, the dose of etomidate was increased by one dose gradient (one dose gradient is r=1:0.85, that is, the ratio of high dose/low dose which are adjacent two doses). The testing of different dose levels of etomidate continued on consecutive randomised patients until a sample size of seven crossover points from "conscious" to "LOC" was reached