Techniques to reduce shoulder pain after laparoscopic surgery for benign gynaecological disease: a systematic review

Due to the well-known advantages of minimal invasive surgery, the majority of procedures for benign gynaecological diseases are performed by laparoscopy. Although laparoscopic surgery results in improved patient satisfaction, a considerable portion of patients have complaints of post-operative shoulder pain. This review presents an overview of the currently evaluated techniques to reduce shoulder pain after laparoscopic surgery for benign gynaecological disease. According to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis guidelines, a systematic review was conducted using Medline, Embase and Cochrane databases. Randomised clinical trials reporting techniques to reduce shoulder pain after laparoscopic gynaecologic procedures for benign diseases were included. Eighty-eight articles were screened for inclusion. A total of 15 articles were included in the final review. The following studies described the techniques used to reduce shoulder pain: six studies evaluated the effect of local anaesthetics, three studies evaluated the effect of pulmonary recruitment manoeuvre and three studies evaluated the effect of intraperitoneal drainage. The remaining three studies evaluated the effect of saline installation, minilaparoscopy and gasless laparoscopy by using the Laprolift®. Overall, the pulmonary recruitment manoeuvre and intraperitoneal drainage were found to reduce the incidence and severity of shoulder pain (SP). Based on the current evidence, safety and possibility to implement the technique in daily practice, pulmonary recruitment manoeuvre can be recommended to reduce both the incidence and severity of SP.