A Prospective Meta-Analysis (PMA) Could Harmonize the Studies Focusing on Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA)

Abstract

With the rapid development of novel surgical devices such as Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) and the eagerness of clinicians to use them, there is a risk that their usage in clinical practice exceeds the evidence-based principles required for their introduction. This might be truer in the fields, such as trauma surgery, where the patient population and the disease (injury) burden are very heterogeneous and time-sensitive, and thus not fitting for the more gold standard investigation methods. The studies that are currently being published considering the use of REBOA in clinical settings have significant limitations and raise concerns in terms of the risk of biases that might influence the gold-standard evidence-based synthesis. This paper elaborates on the merits of a Prospective Meta-Analysis (PMA) in reducing such biases.