Tranexamic Acid Administration in Arthroscopic Surgery Is a Safe Adjunct to Decrease Postoperative Pain and Swelling: A Systematic Review and Meta‐analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose To systematically screen the literature in an effort to critically examine the effect of tranexamic acid (TXA) in patients undergoing arthroscopic surgery, specifically pertaining to pain, blood loss, length of surgery, and both major and minor complications. Methods In accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) and Revised Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (R‐AMSTAR) guidelines, 3 databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane) were searched April 2020 and screened in duplicate using inclusion and exclusion criteria for studies on the given subject. Study findings were reviewed, and meta‐analysis was then performed on sufficiently congruent data using a random‐effects model. Results There were 7 eligible randomized controlled trials, with 724 total patients, undergoing anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (4 studies, 537 patients), meniscectomy (1 study, 45 patients), femoroacetabular impingement (1 study, 70 patients), or rotator cuff repair (1 study, 72 patients). The mean age throughout the included studies was 33.9 years, with a mean of 27.7% female patients. There was a 1% drop out rate at 3 months postoperatively. There were significantly lower visual analog scale scores at 2 weeks postoperatively in the TXA groups (mean difference: –1.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] –3.41 to 0.10, P = .06, I 2 = 97%). Furthermore, there was a significant decrease in the number of patients requiring joint aspiration in the TXA groups (risk ratio 0.27, 95% CI 0.12‐0.56, I 2 = 0%, P = .0006). The drainage output in TXA groups was also significantly decreased (mean difference: –61.14 mL, 95% CI –104.43 to –17.85, I 2 = 94%, P = .006). Furthermore, there was a statistically significant decrease in hemarthrosis grade (Coupens & Yates) at 2 weeks postoperatively (Mean difference: –0.76, 95% CI –0.97 to –0.54, I 2 = 0%, P < .0001). Finally, there was no significant difference in operating time, across all studies (Mean difference: 0.53, 95% CI –3.43 to 4.50, I 2 = 57%, P < .79). The use of TXA showed no increased incidence of deep vein thrombosis, infection, arthrofibrosis, or other major complications or adverse reactions between the TXA and control groups. Conclusions This systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trialss found that the use of TXA significantly improves pain scores up to 6 weeks postoperatively, decreases drainage output, decreases the need for joint aspirations, decreases incidence of hemarthrosis, increases visual clarity and technical ease, and has no increased incidence of other complications, at no loss to operative time. These findings indicate that TXA may be a useful adjunct in arthroscopic knee and shoulder surgery. Level of Evidence II.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.006 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.010 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".