The Necessity To Routinely Use Tourniquet For Knee Arthroscopic Surgery:A Meta-Analysis

Introduction:The use of tourniquet in knee arthroscopic surgery is a routine technique and provides convenience for the operation.However,the adverse effects caused by tourniquet during the operation are noticed by more and more researchers.The purpose of our study was to perform a meta-analysis to assess the effects of tourniquet use in knee arthroscopy.Methods:we searched databases Pubmed,Cochrane library,Embase,Web of science,CNKI,Wanfang Database Chinese biomedical network and Vip database from inception of the database up to November 20,2018,the Chinese keywords “anterior cruciate ligament”,“meniscectomy”,“arthrocopy” etc;the English keywords “knee”,“tourniquet OR tourniquets”,“arthroscopy OR arthroscopic”,“anterior cruciate ligament”,“meniscectomy”,“randomized controlled trial” to identify randomized clinical trials.The included literature data are analyzed by RevMan5.30.Results:A total of 16 randomized controlled trials involving 1132 participants fulfilled the inclusion criteria with 582 patients in tourniquet group and 550 patients in non-tourniquet group.Compared to tourniquet group,non-tourniquet group had less postoperative blood loss and less consumption of analgesic.There were no significant difference between the two groups in intraoperatively arthroscopic visualisation,postoperative pain score,postoperative quadriceps muscle strength and operation time.Conclusion:Our study suggested that compared to tourniquet use,arthroscopic surgery of the knee without tourniquet did not appear to have any disadvantage,and the current evidence was more inclined not to use tourniquet as a routine procedure during the knee arthroscopic surgery.