Efficacy of oxycodone for postoperative dental pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Dental pain is a commonly managed presentation in medicine and dentistry, where oxycodone is often prescribed. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine and quantify the effectiveness of oxycodone for acute dental pain.

Randomised controlled trials, controlled trials and comparative studies were included involving patients >12 years, where oxycodone was trialled for dental pain.

Three databases were searched: Medline Ovid, Embase Ovid and Web of Science. Two authors independently screened title and abstracts for relevance, extracted data and performed bias assessments.

Of 148 potentially relevant studies, 13 articles met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review and of the 13, nine studies were included in the meta-analysis. All studies were single-dose analgesia for surgical third molar extractions.

Oxycodone produced more effective analgesia in combination with paracetamol. In the meta-analysis, monotherapy etoricoxib and rofecoxib showed significant pain relief compared to combination oxycodone/paracetamol (SPID6 mean difference=-2.13, CI=-3.29, -0.98; TOTPAR6 mean difference=-2.98, CI=-4.90, -1.06). Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were more effective than oxycodone/paracetamol combinations, however, the evidence would become weak in a future study with a similar patient setting due to substantial statistical heterogeneity (SPID6 and TOTPAR6 prediction interval -4.471, 0.207 and -7.28, 1.32 respectively).

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were superior than oxycodone/paracetamol combinations, although some patient populations may experience similar effects to the combined oxycodone/paracetamol combination.