Local anaesthesia for pain control during outpatient hysteroscopy: systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To compare the effects of different types of local anaesthetic for pain control during outpatient hysteroscopy. Design Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Setting Outpatient hysteroscopy clinics. Participants Women undergoing diagnostic or operative hysteroscopy as outpatients—that is, without general anaesthesia. Study selection criteria Medline, Embase, CINAHL, the Cochrane library, and reference lists of relevant studies. Two reviewers independently selected trials. Data were abstracted on quality, characteristics, and results. Results There were 20 trials (2851 participants). Data from 15 of these were meta-analysed in subgroups defined by type of intervention and study quality. Intracervical (standardised mean difference −0.36, 95% confidence interval −0.61 to −0.10, I(2)=0%) and paracervical (−1.28, −2.22 to −0.35, I(2)=97%) injections of local anaesthetic significantly reduced the pain in women undergoing hysteroscopy as outpatients, whereas transcervical (−0.11, −0.31 to 0.10, I(2)=27%) and topical application (−0.32, −0.97 to 0.33, I(2)= 90%) did not. Meta-regression showed that paracervical injection was superior to the other anaesthetic methods (P=0.04), a finding that was supported by the high quality subgroup of studies. Use of local anaesthetic did not have a significant effect on the incidence of vasovagal episodes (P=0.09). Conclusions Paracervical local anaesthetic injection is the best method of pain control for women undergoing hysteroscopy as outpatients.