Article Notes
Important to note that the 9 studies included for meta-analysis (524 patients in total) were quite heterogenous: 7 performed under spinal anaesthesia and 2 under general; TAP performed using anatomical landmarks in 3 and ultrasound in 6; spinals used various doses of fentanyl and/or morphine; and the TAP blocks used ropivacaine (4), bupivacaine (4) or levobupivacaine (1). Post-operative analgesic regimes also varied.
Thus these findings should be cautiously applied to your local setting.
Meta-analysis of 10 RCTs totalling 633 subjects showed that while pain at rest following laparoscopic surgery was reduced by transverse abdominis plane block, early (0-4 h) pain was only moderately reduced (-2.4 cm) and late pain (24 hours) minimally reduced (-1.3 cm). Pain with movement was not significantly different between TAP blocks and controls.
POISE showed that for every 1000 patients receiving metoprolol, 15 were prevented from suffering a myocardial infract, 3 from requiring cardiac revascularization along with 7 new cases of atrial fibrillation, but at a cost of causing an excess 8 deaths, 5 strokes, 53 hypotensive events and 42 episodes of bradycardia.
The harm associated with perioperative beta-blockade, at least in the form of non-titrated extended-release metoprolol, is greater than the demonstrated benefit. For every two cases of myocardial infract avoided there is one excess death.