Acta anaesthesiologica Scandinavica
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Acta Anaesthesiol Scand · Aug 2011
Review Meta AnalysisA meta-analysis of the efficacy of wound catheters for post-operative pain management.
Local anesthetics (LA) are injected via catheters placed in surgical wounds for post-operative analgesia. The primary aim of this systematic review was to assess whether LA reduce pain intensity when injected via wound catheters. A literature search was performed from Medline via PubMed, EMBASE and the Cochrane database from 1966 until November 2009. ⋯ LA injected via wound catheters did not reduce pain intensity, except at 48 h in a subgroup of patients undergoing obstetric and gynecological surgery. Rescue analgesic consumption was also lower in this group at 0-24 h. The magnitude of these effects was small and compounded by pronounced heterogeneity.