Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 2, 2026
Author Spotlight: Evaluating the Adjuvant Efficacy and Safety of Angong Niuhuang Pill in Viral Encephalitis Treatment
Published on: April 19, 2024
Pharmacologic prevention of postoperative delirium after on-pump cardiac surgery: A meta-analysis of randomized
Rui Tao1,2, Xiao-Wen Wang3, Liang-Jun Pang1,2
1Department of Substance-Related Disorders, Division of Psychiatry, Hefei No.4 People's Hospital, Anhui Mental Health Center.
Background:
Postoperative delirium is a prevalent and disabling mental disorder in patients undergoing on-pump cardiac surgery. There is some evidence that the use of pharmacological interventions may reduce the risk of developing of postoperative delirium. Therefore, the aim of this meta-analysis was to determine the effect of pharmacologic agents for the prevention postoperative delirium after cardiac surgery.
Methods:
Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified through a systematic literature search of electronic databases and article references up to October 2016. End points included incidence of postoperative delirium, severity of postoperative delirium, cognitive disturbances of postoperative delirium, duration of postoperative delirium, length of stay in intensive care unit (ICU) and hospital, and short-term mortality.
Results:
A total of 14 RCTs with an aggregate of 14,139 patients were included. The results of the present meta-analysis show that pharmacologic agents significantly decrease postoperative delirium [relative risk (RR), 0.83; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.75-0.91, P < .00001] and duration of postoperative delirium (RR = -0.37, 95% CI = -0.47 to -0.27, P < .00001) after on-pump cardiac surgery. In addition, subgroup analysis shows that dexamethasone and dexamethasone were associated with a trend toward a reduction in postoperative delirium (RR, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.30-0.66, P < .0001; RR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.68-0.93, P = .003, respectively). However, our results fail to support the assumption that pharmacologic prophylaxis is associated with a positively reduction in short-term mortality, length of ICU, or hospital stay.
Conclusion:
This meta-analysis suggests that the perioperative use of pharmacologic agents can prevent postoperative delirium development in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. However, there remain important gaps in the evidence base on a few small studies with multiple limitations. Further large-scale, high-quality RCTs are needed in this area.
More Related Videos
09:12Surgical Swine Model of Chronic Cardiac Ischemia Treated by Off-Pump Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery
Published on: March 27, 2018
03:07Single-Port Robotic-assisted Transaxillary Breast-conserving Surgery: A Prospective, Single-arm, Non-randomized Phase IIa Clinical Trial
Published on: August 19, 2025
Related Concept Videos
01:12Statistical Software for Data Analysis and Clinical Trials
01:30ATP Driven Pumps III: V-type Pumps
The peripheral or cytosolic V1 domain with eight subunits is involved in ATP hydrolysis. The integral or transmembrane V0 domain containing at least five subunits...
01:34ATP Driven Pumps II: P-type Pumps
A typical P-type pump has three cytosolic domains: nucleotide-binding (N), phosphorylation (P), and activator (A) domains. These domains are connected to the membrane-spanning helices by short amino acid segments. ATP hydrolysis and covalent phosphoenzyme intermediate formation are crucial parts of the catalytic cycle. At the highly...
01:11Clinical Trials: Overview
01:12Trial and Error and Algorithm
01:16Clinical Trials
There are four phases in a clinical trial. A phase one...