Objective To assess the effectiveness and safety of local versus systemic application of opioids for labor analgesia.
Methods We searched PubMed (1966 to January 2008), EMBASE (1980 to January 2008), The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2008), CBM (1978 to January 2008), CNKI (1979 to January 2008) for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving local versus systemic application of opioids for labor analgesia. Quality assessment and data extraction were conducted by two reviewers independently. Meta-analyses were conducted with The Cochrane Collaboration’s RevMan 4.2.10 software.
Results A total of 12 trials involving 5909 participants met the inclusion criteria. Meta-analyses showed that local application of opioids was superior to systemic application in terms of maternal satisfaction with pain relief during labor (RR 1.63, 95% CI 1.27 to 2.09). No significant difference was found between the two groups in the incidence of low neonatal Apgar score at 5 minutes (RR 0.63, 95% CI 0.40 to 1.01).
Conclusion Local application of opioids for labor analgesia appears to be more effective than systematic use in reducing pain during labor. But as for safety concerns, maternal and neonatal adverse effects are observed in both groups. Thus, more high-quality and large-scale RCTs are needed.
Citation： ZHOU Jun,LIN Xuemei,LUO linli,MA Yushan. Local versus Systemic Application of Opioids for Labor Analgesia: A Systematic Review. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2008, 08(8): 652-661. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.20080148 Copy