Effects of intermittent pneumatic compression devices interventions to prevent deep vein thrombosis in surgical patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

This review aimed to determine the effectiveness of Intermittent Pneumatic Compression (IPC) intervention on Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) in surgical patients. An electronic database search was conducted with PubMed, OVID-MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CENTRAL, from September 22 to 28, 2023. Three researchers independently selected the studies, assessed their methodological quality, and extracted relevant data. We conducted a meta-analysis of the effect of IPC versus the control group and summarized the intervention results from the included studies. Of the 2,696 articles identified 16 randomized control trials met the inclusion criteria for review. IPC interventions significantly affected DVT prevention (OR = 0.81, 95% CI: 0.59–1.11). In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant pooled effect (OR = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.26–0.65]), when the comparison group was no prophylaxis group. However, when the comparison groups were the pharmacologic prophylaxis group ([OR = 1.32, 95% CI 0.78–2.21]) and IPC combined with the pharmacologic prophylaxis group (OR = 2.43, 95% CI: 0.99–5.96) did not affect DVT prevention. The pooled effects of Pulmonary Embolism (PE) (OR = 5.81, 95% CI: 1.25–26.91) were significant. IPC intervention showed a significant effect on bleeding prevention (OR = 0.17, 95% CI: 0.08–0.36) when compared to IPC combined with the pharmacologic groups. IPC intervention effectively prevented DVT, PE, and bleeding in surgical patients. Therefore, we propose that IPC intervention be applied to surgical patients to avoid DVT, pulmonary embolism, and bleeding in the surgical nursing field as scientific evidence suggests.