Carli 2001.

Methods	RCT Approved by the ethics committee and informed consent obtained Setting: Canada Funding: charity
Participants	42 patients undergoing elective colorectal surgery Exclusion criteria included malnutrition, severe cardiopulmonary disease, sepsis, inflammatory bowel disease, chemotherapy or radiotherapy 6 months before surgery and inability to communicate and understand the aim of the project
Interventions	Treatment group: TEA (T8‐T9) with bupivacaine 0.1% and fentanyl 2 mcg/mL for 4 ± 2 days after surgery (n = 21) Control group: IV PCA with morphine (n = 21) All participants received general anaesthesia
Outcomes	VAS on movement at 24, 48 and 72 hours Vomiting Time to first flatus Time to first faeces Hospital LOS
Notes
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	On the day of surgery, participants were allocated at random to 1 of 2 groups
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not mentioned
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not mentioned
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) All outcomes	Unclear risk	Not mentioned
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	Low risk	No loss to follow‐up mentioned
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	Low risk	All results reported
Other bias	Low risk	Groups well balanced