Thermal insulation during recovery from anesthesia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Several studies have evaluated the association between thermal insulation (TI) and control after surgery, with various research designs, recruitment and exclusion criteria, and measurements. The current meta-analysis aimed to assess the correlation between TI and stroke during recovery from anesthesia.

We searched for full-text articles of us of TI during anesthesia recovery in multiple databases including PubMed, Springer, EMBASE and Chinese journal full-text databases. Two reviewers read each article and extracted the relevant data of into a Microsoft Excel table: name of the first author, publication year, year of onset, sample size (TI/control group), patient age range, and other information related to TI patients and control group. The meta-analysis, sensitivity analysis and bias analysis were performed using Review Manager 5.0.

A total of 723 patients from 7 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included in the final analysis. The meta-analysis showed that the recovery time after anesthesia in the TI group was significantly different from that in the control group [mean difference (MD) =-7.02, 95% confidence interval (CI): -10.10 to -3.95, P<0.00001; P for heterogeneity <0.00001, I2=99%], length of stay in Postanesthesia Care Unit (PACU) score [MD =-20.78, 95% CI: -31.32 to -10.24, P=0.0001; P for heterogeneity <0.00001, I2=92%] and shivering rate [relative risk (RR) =0.25, 95% CI: 0.08 to 0.77, P=0.02; P for heterogeneity =0.07, I2=71%].

TI is an important measure during recovery from anesthesia.