Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Background: Maintaining effective labor epidural analgesia while optimizing maternal satisfaction and minimizing drug consumption remains a key objective in obstetric anesthesia. Programmed intermittent epidural bolus (PIEB) techniques have emerged as an alternative to traditional continuous epidural infusion (CEI) combined with patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA). This meta-analysis aimed to compare the efficacy, local anesthetic (LA) consumption, and maternal satisfaction between PIEB regimens (typically combined with PCEA for rescue) and PCEA regimens supplemented with a continuous basal infusion (PCEA+Basal).
Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted for PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published between January 2013 and December 2024 comparing PIEB (+/- PCEA) with PCEA+Basal for labor analgesia. Primary outcomes were hourly LA consumption, maternal satisfaction (rated as high/excellent), and need for clinician rescue analgesia (breakthrough pain). Secondary outcomes included pain scores (Visual Analog Scale - VAS), mode of delivery, duration of labor stages, motor blockade incidence, and neonatal outcomes (Apgar scores). Data were extracted from suitable studies identified through the search. A random-effects model was used for meta-analysis using RevMan software. Mean Differences (MD) or Odds Ratios (OR) with 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) were calculated. Heterogeneity was assessed using the I² statistic.
Results: Five studies involving a total of 1158 parturients met the inclusion criteria. The pooled analysis indicated that PIEB regimens were associated with a trend towards lower hourly LA consumption compared to PCEA+Basal (MD: -1.2 mL/hour; 95% CI: -2.5 to 0.1; P=0.07; I²=78%), although heterogeneity was high. Maternal satisfaction rated as 'high' or 'excellent' was significantly more frequent in the PIEB group (OR: 1.85; 95% CI: 1.20 to 2.85; P=0.005; I²=35%). The need for clinician rescue analgesia was numerically lower with PIEB, but the difference did not reach statistical significance (OR: 0.70; 95% CI: 0.45 to 1.10; P=0.12; I²=45%). No significant differences were noted in VAS pain scores during established labor, mode of delivery, or Apgar scores. Incidence of motor block appeared potentially lower with PIEB regimens.
Conclusion: Based on this meta-analysis, PIEB regimens appear promising for labor analgesia, potentially offering comparable efficacy to PCEA+Basal while possibly reducing local anesthetic consumption and enhancing maternal satisfaction. However, significant heterogeneity was observed for some outcomes. High-quality, large-scale RCTs directly comparing optimized PIEB+PCEA protocols with PCEA+Basal infusion are crucial to definitively establish the relative benefits and risks of these techniques.
Keywords
Article Details
As our aim is to disseminate original research article, hence the publishing right is a necessary one. The publishing right is needed in order to reach the agreement between the author and publisher. As the journal is fully open access, the authors will sign an exclusive license agreement.
The authors have the right to:
- Share their article in the same ways permitted to third parties under the relevant user license.
- Retain copyright, patent, trademark and other intellectual property rights including research data.
- Proper attribution and credit for the published work.
For the open access article, the publisher is granted to the following right.
- The non-exclusive right to publish the article and grant right to others.
- For the published article, the publisher applied for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
