Efficacy of topical vs intravenous tranexamic acid in reducing blood loss and promoting wound healing in bone surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Tranexamic acid (TXA) has been used as an anti-fibrinolytic drug for over half a century and has received much attention in recent decades. AIM: To evaluate the efficacy of topical vs intravenous TXA in reducing blood loss and promoting wound healing in bone surgery. METHODS: From the electronic resources, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, ISI, and Scopus were used to perform a literature search over the last 10 years between 2010 and 2020. EndNote™ X8 was used for managing the electronic resource. Searches were performed with mesh terms. The data were retracted blindly by two independent reviewers. Random effects were used to deal with potential heterogeneity and I(2) showed heterogeneity. Chi-square (I(2)) tests were used to quantify the extent of heterogeneity (P < 0.01 was considered statistically significant). The efficacy of topical TXA in reducing blood loss and promoting wound healing in bone surgery was compared with intravenous TXA and placebo. RESULTS: According to the research design, 1360 potentially important research abstracts and titles were discovered in our electronic searches, and 18 papers remained in agreement with our inclusion criteria. It was found that TXA reduced 277.51 mL of blood loss compared to placebo, and there was no significant difference between topical TXA and IV TXA in reducing blood loss in bone surgery. Our analyses also showed that TXA significantly reduced blood transfusion compared to placebo and there was no significant difference between topical TXA and IV TXA. CONCLUSION: The use of both topical and intravenous TXA are equally effective in reducing blood loss in bone surgery, which might be beneficial for wound healing after surgery.