Importance: Patients undergoing spine surgery often experience severe pain. The optimal dosage of pregabalin and gabapentin for pain control and safety in these patients has not been well established.
Objective: To evaluate the associations of pain, opioid consumption, and adverse events with different dosages of pregabalin and gabapentin in patients undergoing spine surgery.
Data sources: PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane library, and Scopus databases were searched for articles until August 7, 2021.
Study selection: Randomized clinical trials conducted among patients who received pregabalin or gabapentin while undergoing spine surgery were included.
Data extraction and synthesis: Two investigators independently performed data extraction following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) reporting guideline. The network meta-analysis was conducted from August 2022 to February 2023 using a random-effects model.
Main outcomes and measures: The primary outcome was pain intensity measured using the Visual Analog Scale (VAS), and secondary outcomes included opioid consumption and adverse events.
Results: Twenty-seven randomized clinical trials with 1861 patients (median age, 45.99 years [range, 20.00-70.00 years]; 759 women [40.8%]) were included in the systematic review and network meta-analysis. Compared with placebo, the VAS pain score was lowest with gabapentin 900 mg per day, followed by gabapentin 1200 mg per day, gabapentin 600 mg per day, gabapentin 300 mg per day, pregabalin 300 mg per day, pregabalin 150 mg per day, and pregabalin 75 mg per day. Additionally, gabapentin 900 mg per day was found to be associated with the lowest opioid consumption among all dosages of gabapentin and pregabalin, with a mean difference of -22.07% (95% CI, -33.22% to -10.92%) for the surface under the cumulative ranking curve compared with placebo. There was no statistically significant difference in adverse events (nausea, vomiting, and dizziness) among all treatments. No substantial inconsistency between direct and indirect evidence was detected for all outcomes.
Conclusions and relevance: These findings suggest that gabapentin 900 mg per day before spine surgery is associated with the lowest VAS pain score among all dosages. In addition, no differences in adverse events were noted among all treatments.