1. Epidural techniques used ‐ initial dose and subsequent maintenance.
INITIAL DOSE | Nil maintenance | Immediate infusion | Repeat boluses | Repeat boluses | Bolus/infusion | Repeat boluses | PCEA |
LA + opioid | High‐dose LA | Low‐dose LA | Low‐dose LA/opioid | Low‐dose LA/opioid | |||
Low‐dose bupivacaine < 0.25% | Abouleish 1991 | ||||||
Traditional dose bupivacaine = 0.25% | Gomez 2001 Ngamprasertwong 2007 Tsen 1999 |
COMET 2001a Cortes 2007 |
Thomas 2005 | ||||
Low‐dose bupivacaine < 0.25% + opioid | Parry 1998Patel 2003a |
Bhagwat 2008 COMET 2001a Goodman 2006 Skupski 2009 |
Hepner 2000 Medina 1994 Zeidan 2004 |
Abrao 2009 Kartawiadi 1996 Nickells 2000 |
Cohen 2006 Price 1998 Sezer 2007 Van de Velde 1999 Vernis 2004 |
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Traditional dose bupivacaine + opioid | Caldwell 1994 | Roux 1999 | |||||
Test lignocaine + opioid |
Breen 1999 Dunn 1998 |
LA: local anaesthetic PCEA: patient‐controlled epidural analgesia