Time to Extubation—What Causes the Variations?

Excerpt

We thank Dexter et al. for their interest in our paper. The primary goal of our meta-analysis was to evaluate the differences in the recovery profile of patients undergoing bariatric surgery when sevoflurane or desflurane is used for maintenance of general anesthesia. We presented our findings of high heterogeneity that occurred in the pooled results and did not mathematically explore the causes for it [1]. Unlike the manuscript cited by the authors, we did not use any previous data to construct a distribution of “time to extubation” [2] and thus are in no position to comment upon suggested possibilities. Although intuitively we agree to their comment and this can certainly form one of the objectives to be explored for future research on this topic. …