The impact of epidural ropivacaine versus levobupivacaine for labor analgesia on maternal and fetal outcomes: a meta-analysis.

Introduction: Newer neuraxial local anesthetic agents which have been used as epidural analgesia have shown to provide reliable pain relief during labor. Ropivacaine and levobupivacaine are newer agents now used for labor analgesia. However, even though few studies have made their comparison with bupivacaine, ropivacaine and levobupivacaine have seldom systematically been compared. Therefore, in this analysis, we aimed to systematically show the impact of epidural ropivacaine versus levobupivacaine for labor analgesia on maternal and fetal outcomes.

Methods: http://www.

Clinicaltrials: gov , Web of Science, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane database and Google Scholar were searched for studies comparing ropivacaine versus levobupivacaine for labor analgesia. Maternal and fetal outcomes were considered as the endpoints in this analysis. The RevMan software 5.4 was used to analyze data in this study. Risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to represent the data post analysis.

Results: A total number of 2062 participants were included in this analysis whereby 1054 participants were assigned to ropivacaine and 1008 participants were assigned to levobupivacaine. The main results of this analysis showed that epidural ropivacaine was not associated with significantly higher risk of hypotension (RR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.43 - 1.17; P = 0.18) and pruritus (RR: 1.12, 95% CI: 0.89 - 1.42; P = 0.34) when compared to levobupivacaine for labor analgesia. However, the risk of nausea and vomiting was significantly higher with ropivacaine (RR: 1.60, 95% CI: 1.05 - 2.44; P = 0.03). Spontaneous vaginal delivery (RR: 0.99, 95% CI: 0.89 - 1.42; P = 0.83), instrumental vaginal delivery (RR: 1.13, 95% CI: 0.89 - 1.45; P = 0.32) and the risk for cesarean section (RR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.42 - 1.37; P = 0.35) were not significantly different. When fetal outcomes were assessed, Apgar score < 7 at 1 min (RR: 1.01: 95% CI: 0.57 - 1.80; P = 0.97), abnormality of fetal heart rate (RR: 1.45, 95% CI: 0.55 - 3.79; P = 0.45) and neonatal asphyxia (RR: 0.35, 95% CI: 0.10 - 1.18; P = 0.09) were also similarly manifested.

Conclusions: To conclude, our analysis showed both epidural ropivacaine and levobupivacaine to be equally effective for labor analgesia in terms of maternal and fetal outcomes. No major adverse maternal and fetal outcome was observed in this analysis. However, considering the several limitations of this analysis, further larger studies should be able to solve and clarify this issue.