Postoperative complications
Various postoperative complications were retrieved from enrolled
studies. We analyzed the incidence of postoperative complications, with
a particular focus on the infection (wet ear), wound gap, visible scar,
nausea and vomiting. Incidence of postoperative complications was
reported in ten studies.
Data regarding the infection (wet ear) were available from six studies
with a total of 486 interventions. Three studies reported data on the
wound gap with a total of 210 interventions. Based on the pooled
analysis, ET showed a non-significant difference compared to MT in terms
of the rates of infection
(6.3% vs. 7.3%; OR: 0.94; 95% CI 0.46 to 1.94; p = 0.87) and wound
gap (0.9% vs. 6.3%; OR: 0.25;
95% CI 0.05 to 1.30; p = 0.10). Also, no heterogeneity was found.
Data regarding visible scar, we found three studies with a total of 220
interventions. Two studies reported data on postoperative nausea and
vomiting, with a total of 160 interventions for each. In the pooled
analysis, ET showed a highly significant decrease compared to MT in
terms of the rates of visible scar (0% vs. 72.7%; OR: 0.01; 95% CI
0.00 to 0.03; p < 0.00001), nausea (36.3% vs. 67.5%; OR:
0.27; 95% CI 0.14 to 0.53; p = 0.0001), and vomiting (12.5% vs.
43.8%; OR: 0.18; 95% CI 0.08 to 0.41;
p < 0.0001). In addition, no heterogeneity was found.
The overall effect of pooling the previous five subgroups showed that
the rate of complications is significantly lower in ET than in MT (8.8%
vs. 32%; OR: 0.24; 95% CI 0.12 to 0.49; p < 0.0001)
(Figure 6).