Efficacy and safety of tranexamic acid usage in patients undergoing posterior lumbar fusion: a meta-analysis

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this meta-analysis is to evaluate the efficacy and safety of tranexamic acid (TXA) for patients with degenerative lumbar disc herniation, stenosis or instability undergoing posterior lumbar fusion (PLF) surgery. METHODS: statistics. RevMan 5.0 and STATA 14.0 software were used for data analysis. RESULTS: Nine studies enrolling 713 patients for the study. The pooled outcomes demonstrated that TXA can decrease total blood loss (TBL) in patients underwent PLF surgery [WMD = -250.68, 95% CI (- 325.06, - 176.29), P<0.001], intraoperative blood loss (IBL) [WMD = -72.57, 95% CI (- 103.94, - 41.20), P<0.001], postoperative blood loss (PBL) [WMD = -127.57, 95% CI (- 149.39, - 105.75), P<0.001], and the loss of hemoglobin (Hb) in postoperative 24 h [WMD = -0.31, 95% CI (- 0.44, - 0.18), P<0.001]. However, there is no significant difference between two groups in transfusion rate [RR =0.34, 95% CI (0.09, 1.28), P = 0.11], and none thrombotic event was happened in the two groups. CONCLUSION: Our meta-analysis demonstrated that TXA can decrease the Hb loss, TBL, IBL, PBL, and without increasing the risk of thrombotic event in patients with degenerative lumbar disc herniation, stenosis or instability underwent PLF surgery. However, there was no significant difference in blood transfusion rates between the two groups.