SynthesisFrontiers in neurology2026
Effects of esketamine on postoperative delirium in adult patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Frontiers in neurology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Postoperative delirium (POD) is a common perioperative complication linked to poor prognosis. As the S-enantiomer of racemic ketamine, esketamine exhibits neuroprotective potential, yet its overall efficacy and safety for perioperative neurocognitive protection await systematic confirmation. Methods: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched from inception to November 8, 2025, for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining esketamine's effect on POD in patients under elective general anesthesia. Meta-analyses were conducted via Stata/MP 18.0: risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for dichotomous data, and mean differences (MD) or standardized mean differences (Cohen's d) with 95% CIs for continuous outcomes. Cochrane RoB 2.0 Tool assessed bias risk in included studies. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework was adopted to evaluate the certainty of all evidence. Results: Twenty-two RCTs involving 2,860 patients were included. Perioperative esketamine administration significantly reduced POD incidence (RR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.43 to 0.75; Conclusion: Perioperative esketamine exerts favorable neuroprotective and recovery-improving effects in Chinese surgical populations, reducing POD, dNCR, postoperative neuroinflammation, neuronal injury, and agitation with a safe adverse event profile. Restricted by geographical homogeneity, substantial heterogeneity, and low GRADE evidence certainty, further high-quality international multicenter trials are required to validate and standardize its clinical application. Systematic review registration: This systematic review has been formally registered. https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD420251184190.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.