Effect of different doses of local anesthetics on outcomes in spinal anesthesia: A meta-analysis

This work compares the effect of different doses of local anesthetics in spinal anesthesia on the death rate, incidences of pneumonia, urinary infection, and drug consumption like ephedrine. We conduct a statistical analysis of research studies known as meta-analysis. Data values from four studies were collected, aggregated, and compared by the sample means and sample standard deviations of the two groups of patients with ‘low doses’ and ‘high doses’ of used local anesthetics. Our analysis found that there is no statistically significant difference between the lower and higher doses of local anesthetics for spinal anesthesia in terms of death rate (the risk ratio (RR) with a 95% CI is 0.87 [0.12, 6.53]), incidences of pneumonia (RR with 95% CI is 0.93 [0.74, 1.16]), incidences of urinary infection (RR with 95% CI is 1.25 [0.16, 9.56]), and the doses of used ephedrine (SMD with 95% CI is –0.31 [–1.19, 0.56]). Findings suggest that the choice of local anesthetic dose in spinal anesthesia may not significantly impact the above-mentioned outcomes.