Assessing advances in regional anesthesia by their portrayals in meta-analyses: an alternative view on recent progress

Table 2 Topics of meta-analyses after their final selection

#	Topic	Time period of maximal rise in IC	Number of selected meta-analyses	Authors
1	Thoracic paravertebral block in breast surgery	2011–2015	1	Terkawi et al., 2015 [12]
2	Perineural dexamethasone as adjunct for peripheral nerve block	2011–2015	3	Albrecht et al., 2015 [13]; Huynh et al. 2015 [14]; Knezevic et al., 2015 [15]
3	Transversus abdominis plane block	2011–2015	1	Baeriswyl et al., 2015 [16]
4	Ultrasound guidance for peripheral nerve blocks	2006–2010	3	Lewis et al., 2015; [17] Munirama and McLeod 2015; [18] Gelfand et al., 2011 [19]
5	Femoral nerve block in knee surgery	2001–2005	3	Chan et al., 2014 [20]; Xu et al. 2014 [21]; Paul et al., 2010 [22]
6	Effect of perioperative epidural analgesia combined with general anesthesia on mortality in cardiac surgery	2001–2005	3	Zhang et al., 2015; [23] Svircevic et al., 2013; [24] Bignami et al., 2010 [25]
7	Preemptive effect of epidural analgesics	1996–2000	1	Ong et al., 2005 [26]
8	Spinal anesthesia and intraoperative blood loss	1996–2000	1	Richman et al., 2006 [27]
Total	8		16	-

In bold letters are the meta-articles with the outcomes selected for the assessment when there were several meta-analyses on a topic (only the most reliable outcome of all the meta-articles on the topic was selected)

ISSN: 1471-2253