The efficacy and safety of combined administration of intravenous and intra-articular tranexamic acid in total knee arthroplasty: An update meta-analysis

Department of Pharmacy, Suqian First Hospital, Suqian, China. Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China. Department of Pharmacy, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital, Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.

Journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics. 2022
Abstract
WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE This study was performed to compare the efficacy and safety of combined administration of intravenous (IV) and intra-articular (IA) tranexamic acid (TXA) with IV or IA TXA alone in total knee arthroplasty (TKA). METHODS PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in July 2021. Total blood loss, transfusion rate, postoperative haemoglobin drop, drain output, deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) were pooled. Data were analyzed using Stata 14.0 software. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42020186654. RESULTS Ten RCTs involving 1306 patients were included. Combined TXA group provided lower total blood loss (SMD -0.47; 95% CI -0.64 to -0.30; p < 0.001), postoperative haemoglobin drop (SMD -0.47; 95% CI -0.60 to -0.33; p < 0.001) and drain output (SMD -0.50; 95% CI -0.71 to -0.29; p = 0.009) compared with IV or IA TXA alone group. No significant difference was found in terms of transfusion rate (OR 0.53; 95% CI 0.23 to 1.23; p = 0.137) and DVT (OR 0.55; 95% CI 0.18 to 1.68; p = 0.293). PE data was provided by all 10 studies, but PE only occurred in one patient in IV TXA alone group. WHAT IS NEW AND CONCLUSION Combined administration of IV and IA TXA was relatively more effective in reducing total blood loss, transfusion rate, postoperative haemoglobin drop, and drain output after TKA. TXA may not increase the risk of DVT/PE, but it also needs to be monitored in clinical application.
Study details
Study Design : Systematic Review
Language : eng
Credits : Bibliographic data from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine