The Efficacy of Local Anesthesia for Postoperative Pain Control in Breast Augmentation Surgery: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Background: Breast augmentation can cause severe postoperative pain; therefore, some surgeons perform wound infiltration with a local anesthetic solution. This study investigated the postoperative pain relief of local analgesics in breast augmentation surgery. Methods: We searched three databases for randomized controlled trials evaluating the outcomes of local wound irrigation with local analgesics during or after breast augmentation surgery. The solutions included ropivacaine, bupivacaine, bupivacaine plus ketorolac. The control groups may be saline alone or no irrigation. Network meta-analysis was further employed based on the frequentist approach. Outcomes were reported as weighted mean differences with 95% confidence intervals. Results: Comparisons between the interventions of our included studies revealed that only bupivacaine plus ketorolac (versus placebo) significantly reduced pain at 1 h postoperatively, as indicated by the visual analog scale pain score reduction of 2.22 (− 3.98, − 0.47). Other comparisons showed no significant differences. Moreover, three of the included studies reported postoperative medication use. Two of them reported that postoperative narcotic use was reduced, but the others did not report any such reduction. Conclusions: Our results showed possibility that local irrigation with bupivacaine plus ketorolac might reduce pain 1 h after surgery. In addition, local anesthesia might reduce postoperative narcotic use. However, due to the small number of included studies, the clinical benefits of local anesthesia in breast augmentation surgery require further confirmation. Level of Evidence III: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.