Comparison of the efficacy and safety between dezocine injection and morphine injection for persistence of pain in Chinese cancer patients: a meta-analysis

The association between the efficacy and safety of dezocine injection and morphine injection for persistence of pain in patients with cancer had yielded controversial results. Therefore, we conduct a meta-analysis of existing observational published studies to assess the relationship between them among Chinese. We conducted a comprehensive research from the databases of PubMed, Web of Science, and Wan Fang Med Online for the related studies up to October 2016. Summary odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated with the random effects model. Nine published studies comprising 333 dezocine injection patients and 321 morphine injection patients were included in this meta-analysis. Our results suggested that there was no statistical significance between dezocine injection and morphine injection at the case number of effective pain relief (EPR) [OR = 0.97, 95% CI (0.77–1.22), I(2) = 0.0, P for heterogeneity = 1.000]. However, the rate of adverse drug reaction (ADR) caused by dezocine injection was 56% less than that caused by morphine injection, the difference was statistically significant [OR = 0.44, 95% CI (0.30–0.65), I(2) = 0.0, P for heterogeneity = 0.980]. No between-study heterogeneity and publication bias were found. In conclusions, this meta-analysis indicates that there is no significant association on the efficacy of persistence of pain in patients with cancer between dezocine injection and morphine injection among Chinese. However, dezocine injection was with less ADR compared with morphine injection.