What is the impact of dexamethasone on postoperative pain in adults undergoing general anaesthesia for elective abdominal surgery: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Previous meta-analysis of heterogeneous surgical cohorts demonstrated reduction in postoperative pain with perioperative intravenous dexamethasone, but none have addressed adults undergoing elective abdominal surgery. Objective To determine the impact of intravenous perioperative dexamethasone on postoperative pain in adults undergoing elective abdominal surgery under general anaesthesia. Methods This review was prospectively registered on the international prospective register of systematic reviews (CRD42020176202). Electronic databases Medical Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Exerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), (CINAHL) Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Web of Science and trial registries were searched to January 28 2021 for randomised controlled trials, comparing dexamethasone to placebo or alternative antiemetic, that reported pain. The primary outcome was pain score, and secondary outcomes were time to first analgesia, opioid requirements and time to post-anaesthesia care unit (PACU) discharge. Results Fifty-two studies (5768 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. Pain scores ≤4 hours were reduced in patients who received dexamethasone at rest (mean difference (MD), -0.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) -0.72 to -0.35, I2 = 81%) and on movement (MD -0.42, 95% CI -0.62 to -0.22, I2 = 35 ). In the dexamethasone group 4–24 hour pain scores were less at rest (MD -0.31, 95% CI -0.47 to -0.14, I2 = 96) and on movement (MD -0.26, 95% CI -0.39 to -0.13, I2 = 29) and pain scores ≥24 hours were reduced at rest (MD -0.38, 95% CI -0.52 to -0.24, I2 = 88) and on movement (MD -0.38, 95% CI -0.65 to -0.11, I2 = 71). Time to first analgesia (minutes) was increased (MD 22.92, 95% CI 11.09 to 34.75, I2 = 98), opioid requirements (mg oral morphine) decreased (MD -6.66, 95% CI -9.38 to -3.93, I2 = 88) and no difference in time to PACU discharge (MD -3.82, 95% CI -10.87 to 3.23, I2 = 59%). Conclusions Patients receiving dexamethasone had reduced pain scores, postoperative opioid requirements and longer time to first analgesia. Dexamethasone is an effective analgesic adjunct for patients undergoing abdominal surgery.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.017 | 0.038 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.031 | 0.051 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".