Effect of smoking cessation duration before surgery on postoperative pulmonary complications: a meta-analysis / 中华健康管理学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the impact of duration of preoperative smoking cessation on preventing postoperative pulmonary complications. Methods A literature search was conducted at PUBMED, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database, and Wangfang database. Meta-analyses were conducted for randomized trials and observational studies on preoperative smoking cessation and postoperative pulmonary complications published in the period from the establishment of the database to July 2016.Results A total of 14 studies were included,involving 8 060 patients in the quitting group and 2 845 in the control group. Smokers who quit not less than four weeks before surgery had lower risk of complications than those who did not abstain till surgery or quit less than four weeks before surgery(RR 0.77;95%CI 0.68 to 0.88).Smokers who quit not less than eight weeks before surgery had lower risk of complications than those who did not abstain till surgery or quit less than eight weeks before surgery (RR 0.54; 95% CI 0.35 to 0.85). Conclusions Abstaining from smoking for at least four weeks before surgery reduces the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications. Abstaining from smoking for at least eight weeks also reduces the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications and is demonstrated to be more beneficial.