AIM: To investigate the anesthetic effect of remimazolam tosilate combined with remifentanil in elderly patients undergoing spinal surgery, and its impacts on hemodynamics, serum interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 8 (CXCL8) level. METHODS: A total of 88 elderly patients who underwent spinal surgery in our hospital from May 2022 to May 2023 were randomly separated into an experimental group and a control group. The control group was given remifentanil, and the experimental group was anesthetized with remimazolam tosilate on the basis of the control group. The anesthesia effect, hemodynamic indicators, serum IL-1β and CXCL8 levels, and complication rate were compared between two groups. RESULTS: After different anesthesia regimens, the recovery time of spontaneous respiration, extubation time, and recovery time of the two groups were compared, and the experimental group were obviously shorter than the control group (P<0.05); compared with pre administration (T0), the fluctuation ranges of hemodynamic indexes, including heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP), in the experimental group after 1 min (T1), 5 min (T2) , 10 min (T3) and after extubation (T4) of administration were obviously lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). After surgery, the levels of IL-1β and CXCL8 in the serum of the two groups obviously increased (P<0.05), but the experimental group showed a obvious decrease compared to the control group (P<0.05); there was no significant difference in the incidence of complications between the two groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The combined anesthesia of remimazolam tosilate and remifentanil has an ideal effect and high clinical application value for elderly patients undergoing spinal surgery.