The prophylactic omentectomy procedure in reducing the complication rate of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis in pediatric: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: The role of the omentectomy procedure on Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) catheter placement in pediatric patients has been differently evaluated in the literature, with some studies showing improvement while others showing no difference. Our study aims to define the advantages of omentectomy compared to a procedure without omentectomy.

Methods: The literature searching in online databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Scopus, and ClinicalTrial.gov) following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42023412846). The protocol was performed through April 2023 and focused on pediatric patients treated with an omentectomy procedure and related complications. The risk of bias in each study was assessed using the risk of bias for the non-randomized control trials (ROBINS-I). The effect estimates were extracted as risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI). The heterogeneity of the studies was considered as high heterogeneity if I2 values above 50% or p < 0.05.

Results: In the total of 676 articles identified in the database searching for screening, nine studies with 775 patients met the criteria for inclusion. The omentectomy procedure significantly showed a lower incidence of catheter obstruction compared to the control group, (OR 0.24 [95% CI, 0.12-0.49], p < 0.0001, I2 = 0%). Moreover, omentectomy demonstrated a similar trend in the rate of removal or reinsertion of the catheter with high heterogeneity, OR 0.25 [95% CI, 0.12-0.51), p = 0.0002, I2 = 70%).

Conclusions: The omentectomy procedure showed a lower incidence of catheter obstruction and complications leading to removal or reinsertion of the catheter.