European journal of medical research
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Review Meta Analysis
Thoracic epidural anesthesia improves outcomes in patients undergoing cardiac surgery: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
To assess the efficacy of thoracic epidural anesthesia (TEA) with or without general anesthesia (GA) versus GA in patients who underwent cardiac surgery, PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane online database, and Web of Science were searched with the limit of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) relevant to 'thoracic epidural anesthesia' and 'cardiac surgery'. Studies were identified and data were extracted by two reviewers independently. The quality of included studies was also assessed according to the Cochrane handbook. ⋯ With regard to treatment-related complications, the pooled results for respiratory complications (risk ratio (RR), 0.69; 95% CI: 0.51, 0.91, P < 0.05), supraventricular arrhythmias (RR, 0.61; 95% CI: 0.42, 0.87, P < 0.05), and pain (mean difference (MD), -1.27; 95% CI: -2.20, -0.35, P < 0.05) were 0.69, 0.61, and -1.27, respectively. TEA was also associated with significant reduction of stays in intensive care unit (MD, -2.36; 95% CI: -4.20, -0.52, P < 0.05) and hospital (MD, -1.51; 95% CI: -3.03, 0.02, P > 0.05) and time to tracheal extubation (MD, -2.06; 95% CI:-2.68, -1.45, P < 0.05). TEA could reduce the risk of complications such as supraventricular arrhythmias, stays in hospital or intensive care unit, and time to tracheal extubation in patients who experienced cardiac surgery.