Efficacy and safety of intravenous lidocaine for postoperative analgesia and recovery after surgery: a systematic review with trial sequential analysis.

Background: Improvement of postoperative pain and other perioperative outcomes remain a significant challenge and a matter of debate among perioperative clinicians. This systematic review aims to evaluate the effects of perioperative i.v.

[Epidural analgesia in combination with general anesthesia].

Epidural anaesthesia is a widely used and accepted technique for perioperative analgesia in different kinds of surgery. Apart from analgetic effect and due to wide positve effects on patients outcome epidural analgesia is often used with general anaesthesia. It represents a reliable and reversible neural deafferentation technique that effectively contributes to a reduction of the surgical stress response with subsequent positive effects on cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal, and immune function.

Continuous intravenous perioperative lidocaine infusion for postoperative pain and recovery.

Background: The management of postoperative pain and recovery is still unsatisfactory in clinical practice. Opioids used for postoperative analgesia are frequently associated with adverse effects including nausea and constipation. These adverse effects prevent smooth postoperative recovery.

Efficacy and safety of intraoperative dexmedetomidine for acute postoperative pain in children: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Aim of the current meta-analysis was to assess the effects of intraoperative dexmedetomidine on postoperative pain, analgesic consumption, and adverse events in comparison with placebo or opioids in children undergoing surgery.

Methods: This meta-analysis was performed according to the recommendations of the PRISMA statement and the Cochrane collaboration. For dichotomous and continuous outcomes of efficacy and adverse events, the Revman(®) (The Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark) statistical software was used to calculate relative risk (RR), mean difference (MD), and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Sex-related differences of patient-controlled epidural analgesia for postoperative pain.

Gender differences in pain modulation are evident but data are rare with regard to perioperative regional analgesia. The aim of the present analysis was to assess gender-related differences in pain ratings, analgesic consumption, and adverse events in a large group of patients treated with patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA) after major surgery. Data from 14,988 adult patients (6506 women; 8482 men) receiving a PCEA between January 1998 and December 2009 were examined.

Efficacy and safety of clonidine as additive for caudal regional anesthesia: a quantitative systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Clonidine is still the most popular additive for caudal regional anesthesia. Aim of the present quantitative systematic review was to assess the efficacy and safety of the combined use of clonidine and local anesthetics in comparison with caudal local anesthetics alone.

Methods: The systematic search, data extraction, critical appraisal and pooled analysis were performed according to the PRISMA statement.

Efficacy and adverse effects of ketamine as an additive for paediatric caudal anaesthesia: a quantitative systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Background: The aim of this quantitative systematic review was to assess the efficacy and adverse effects of ketamine added to caudal local anaesthetics in comparison with local anaesthetics alone in children undergoing urological, lower abdominal, or lower limb surgery.

Methods: The systematic search, data extraction, critical appraisal, and pooled data analysis were performed according to the PRISMA statement. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included in this meta-analysis and relative risk (RR), mean difference (MD), and the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using the Revman(®) statistical software for dichotomous and continuous outcomes.