ReviewCureus2025
Efficacy of Non-opioid Analgesics in the Management of Postoperative Pain After Major Abdominal Surgery: A Comprehensive Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.
Review in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Postoperative pain (POP) is one of the leading clinical challenges of patients undergoing major surgeries, including abdominal surgeries. Opioid analgesics are considered the gold standard for POP. However, their use is associated with a high incidence of adverse events, including nausea and vomiting, which has prompted clinicians to look for alternative regimens that are not opioid-based. This review aims to provide an overview of the existing evidence regarding the effectiveness of non-opioid analgesics (NOAs) in the management of POP in patients who have undergone major abdominal surgeries. A comprehensive search was conducted on four databases: Google Scholar, PubMed, CENTRAL, and Science Direct. The studies that met the inclusion criteria were then included in the review. The reported outcomes were pooled using the Review Manager software (RevMan 5.4, The Cochrane Collaboration, London, UK). The literature search identified 657 articles, among which 18 were included in the review according to the inclusion criteria. Our study found that the mean postoperative opioid consumption was significantly lower among individuals treated with non-opioid analgesics than with opioid analgesics SMD -1.88; 95% CI (-2.40, -1.36); p < 0.0001). Further analysis showed that the mean opioid consumption was also lower in those who received NSAIDs and other atypical analgesics (SMD -2.24; 95% CI (-2.94, -1.55); p < 0.00001) and (SMD -1.18; 95% CI (-2.18, -0.17); p = 0.02), respectively. However, in those who received paracetamol, the mean opioid consumption was comparable to that of controls (SMD -1.09; 95% CI (-2.21, 0.03); p = 0.06). Secondly, our study found that the incidence of opioid-related nausea was reduced in patients who received NOA than in controls (OR 0.38; 95% CI (0.22, 0.66); p = 0.0005). However, the incidence of vomiting was equivalent across both groups (OR 0.64; 95% CI (0.39, 1.04); p = 0.07). This study found that NOAs are good adjuvants in pain management in patients undergoing major abdominal surgery. They aid in reducing the dosage of opioids required for adequate analgesia and thus also reduce the incidence of some of the related adverse events.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.