SynthesisMedicine2019
Is bipolar sealer superior than standard electrocautery for blood loss control after primary total knee arthroplasty: A meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.
- Preoperative Hemoglobin Discriminates Perioperative Transfusion in Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty: A Single-Center Preliminary Study with Internal Validation and a Candidate Blood-Preparation Threshold.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Enhancing bleeding control in total knee arthroplasty for osteoarthritis and rheumatic diseases: strategies and insights.Reumatologia · 2025Review
- Bipolar Sealers and Tourniquet Use Have Similar Outcomes in Total Knee Arthroplasty.Indian journal of orthopaedics · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWhether bipolar sealer (BS) is superior to standard electrocautery in patients with primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA) remains controversial. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis involving comparative studies (S) to evaluate whether administration with BS (I) was associated with less blood loss (O) than standard electrocautery (C) after primary TKA (P).
methodsPubMed (1950-January 2017), EMBASE (1974-January 2017), the Cochrane Library (January 2017 Issue 3), and the Google database (1950-January 2017) were systematically searched. Studies were included in accordance with Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, and Setting including criteria. Only the patients prepared for primary TKA and administrated with BS as the intervention group and standard electrocautery as control group were included in this meta-analysis. Outcomes include need for transfusion, total blood loss, blood loss in drainage, hemoglobin at discharge, hemoglobin drop, and length of hospital stay. Continuous outcomes and discontinuous outcomes were expressed as weighted mean difference (WMD) and risk ratio (RR) with corresponding confidence intervals (CIs), respectively. Stata 13.0 software was used for relevant data calculation.
resultsA total of 7 clinical trials with 718 patients (398 patients in BS group and 320 in standard electrocautery group) were finally included in this meta-analysis. The pooled results indicated that administration with BS was associated with little reduction of total blood loss (WMD = -123.80, 95%CI -236.56 to -11.04, P = .031). There was no significant difference between the need for transfusion, blood loss in drainage, hemoglobin at discharge, hemoglobin drop, and length of hospital stay (P > .05).
conclusionBased on the current meta-analysis, we found no evidence to support the routine use of bipolar sealer in the management of blood loss in primary TKA. Since the poor quality of the included studies, more randomized controlled trials are still needed to further identify the efficacy of BS after primary TKA.
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