Objective: The objective of this systematic review was to determine the effectiveness of preoperative oral pregabalin for anxiety control, the most effective dosage regimen, its impact on postoperative pain, and its adverse effects.
Materials and methods: A search was conducted of PubMed/Medline and clinicaltrials.gov (National Library of Medicine, Washington, DC), Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases for studies published between January 2009 and November 2018, with no language restriction. Based on PRISMA guidelines, the specific question was: is preoperative oral pregabalin effective and safe for anxiety control in patients undergoing surgery? The critical reading of retrieved studies followed questions prepared by the CASPe Network, and their methodological quality was evaluated using the Jadad Scale.
Results: Twelve randomized controlled trials were selected for review. All twelve studies were trials of high quality. A dose of 75 mg preoperative oral pregabalin has been found to reduce anxiety and stabilize intraoperative hemodynamics, although a more significant improvement appears to be achieved with a single dose of 150 mg pregabalin at least 1 h before the surgery. It is not associated with any severe adverse effects.
Conclusion: Preoperative administration of oral pregabalin in a single dose of 150 mg appears to be effective to significantly reduce the anxiety of patients, intraoperative hemodynamic changes, and postoperative pain.
Clinical relevance: These findings suggest that pregabalin is useful and safe for preoperative and intraoperative anxiety control in patients undergoing surgery.
Keywords: Anxiety; Pregabalin; Preoperative; Side effects; Systematic review.