Acute post surgical pain may result in chronic post surgical pain: A systemic review and meta analysis

Objective: Chronic post surgical pain (CPSP) occurres frequently (from 10% to 50%) and has serious effects on the mood and activities of patients. This study was designed to evaluate the relationship between acute post surgical pain and chronic post surgical pain. Methods: Electronic search databases included PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane database and web of science. 9-stars Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to evaluate the quality of included studies. The odds ratio was used as a summary statistic index. Heterogeneity was assessed with I2. Results: We collected data from 4 case-control studies with or without chronic post surgical pain and compared those with patients who had acute post surgical pain or not. The age, sex was controlled as confounding factors. We collected 765 patients with chronic post surgical pain, of which 38.82% used to have acute post surgical pain. The risk ratio of patients with acute post surgical pain, as compared with no acute post surgical pain, was 3.10 for chronic post surgical pain (95% CI: 2.44, 3.96). Conclusion: Acute post surgical pain is a rick factor for chronic post surgical pain. We need to pay much attention to this phenomenon. However, more studies with high quality were still needed to confirm these findings.