Preoperative introduction of intravenous corticosteroids shows notable efficacy in reducing morphine consumption and postoperative pain, evident from a meta-analysis conducted by the scientists of the Department of Spinal Orthopedics, Jizhong Energy Xingtai Mining Group General Hospital, China.

The CENTRAL, PubMed, Web of Science, Google databases, and Embase were systematically searched from inception to March 29, 2018, to extract the randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The weighted mean difference (WMD) and pooled risk ratio (RR) with corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) of continuous outcomes (the length of hospital stay, visual analog scale [VAS] scores at 12 h, 24 h, 48 h, and 72 h, and total morphine consumption) and discontinuous outcomes (surgical-site infections along with postoperative nausea and vomiting [PONV]) were generated during the meta-analysis.