Cardiothoracic & vascular anesthesia
Superficial Parasternal Intercostal Plane Block for Analgesia After Cardiac Surgery: An Updated Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials With Meta-regression and Trial Sequential Analysis
Pooled resultResult — go to the resultMD −8.53 mg 95% CI −14.39 to −2.68Authors' conclusion
S-PIP provides modest early analgesic benefits after cardiac surgery.
Study context
- Population
- Adults undergoing cardiac surgery (median sternotomy)
- Participants
- 1,760 adults · 27 RCTs
- Comparison
- Superficial parasternal intercostal plane (S-PIP) block vs standard or placebo analgesia
- Outcome
- Opioid use (MME)
- Follow-up
- 24 hours
Methodological detailsrandom-effects model, trial sequential analysis, meta-regression, GRADE, Certainty of evidence moderate to very low (GRADE)
- Random-effects model
- Trial sequential analysis
- Meta-regression
- GRADE
- Certainty of evidence moderate to very low (GRADE)
Pooled result
As reported in the abstract
MD
−8.53 mg
95% CI −14.39 to −2.68
S-PIP vs Control
MD −8.53 mg (95% CI −14.39 to −2.68)
Further pooled results
Early pain scores, rescue analgesic use, extubation time, ICU stay
- Lower early pain scores, reduced rescue analgesic use, shorter extubation time and ICU stay with S-PIP
Hospital stay, chronic postsurgical pain
- No meaningful differences
Safety
PONV
- No meaningful difference
Original publication
Superficial Parasternal Intercostal Plane Block for Analgesia After Cardiac Surgery: An Updated Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials With Meta-regression and Trial Sequential Analysis. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. Published 19 January 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →