• Der Anaesthesist · Sep 1997

    Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial

    [Propofol and postoperative nausea and/or vomiting].

    • U Jost, C Dörsing, C Jahr, and M Hirschauer.
    • Zentrum für Ansthesiologie des Caritaskrankenhauses Bad Mergentheim, Akademisches Lehrkrankenhaus, Universitt Heidelberg.
    • Anaesthesist. 1997 Sep 1;46(9):776-82.

    UnlabelledThe objective of this prospective, randomised study was to investigate the incidence of postoperative nausea and/or vomiting (PONV) during the first 24 h postoperatively. For a quality assurance study on PONV, we compared two established general anaesthetic procedures in 239 patients undergoing four different types of surgery (subtotal thyroidectomy, laparotomy for gynaecological procedures, laparoscopy, and surgery for extra-abdominal procedures).MethodsAll eligible patients provided informed consent. For premedication temazepam 10-20 mg was administered orally. We used propofol (1.5-2 mg/kg) for induction of anaesthesia in all patients, followed by 0.1-0.3 mg fentanyl, 2.5-5 mg droperidol, and for muscular relaxation atracurium or pancuronium according to body weight. Maintenance of general anaesthesia in group A was by administration of isoflurane in a maximum concentration of 0.6 vol.% in 70% nitrous oxide and 30% oxygen and in group B by continuous infusion of propofol (5-8 mg/kg.h) and normoventilation with oxygen in air (Fi02 = 0.3). In both groups additional analgesia was provided intraoperatively by equal dosages of fentanyl up to a maximum of 0.6 mg and clonidine up to 200 micrograms. Episodes of PONV were registered following extubation, during the first 4 h postoperatively, during the period 4-24 h postoperatively, and after the first mobilisation. Pain scores were recorded with the aid of a visual analogues scale. The statistical evaluation was performed using the chi-square or Wilcoxon test.Results And DiscussionIn patients undergoing thyroidectomy or laparotomy, continuous infusion of propofol drastically reduced the incidence of PONV in the first 24 h postoperatively, particularly during the first 4 h (25/41 vs 10/41, resp. 20/32 vs 11/31). The overall incidence of PONV was higher in the first half of the menstrual cycles decreased with patient age, increased with the duration of anaesthesia, and was higher in patients with a history of motion sickness. With the same level of analgesia in both groups, the differences disappeared in the further postoperative course. The use of similar dosages of opioids for pain control in these groups might explain this observation. PONV occurred extremely rarely in patients undergoing laparoscopy (1 resp. 2 of 34), and in those undergoing surgery for extra-abdominal procedures did not occur at all. The explanation may be that the induction of anaesthesia with propofol was followed only by a relatively short duration of general anaesthesia for these surgical procedures, and postoperative pain control was performed solely with non-opioids.ConclusionsWe found that the antiemetic effect of propofol was considerable in the early postoperative period. The higher cost of propofol as compared to other induction agents can be covered by not using nitrous oxide for maintenance of anaesthesia and by the decreased need for antiemetic drugs postoperatively. According to the calculations of our clinical pharmacy, the costs of the propofol infusion regimen exceeded those of balanced anaesthesia by 8.50 DM/h; the need for antiemetics was one-half that of the non-propofol group. Considering a cost of 16 DM for cleaning the bed after vomiting, improvement of the patient's condition during the postoperative period can be achieved without additional expense.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…