• Sachin Kheterpal, Michelle T Vaughn, Timur Z Dubovoy, Nirav J Shah, Lori D Bash, Douglas A Colquhoun, Amy M Shanks, Michael R Mathis, Roy G Soto, Amit Bardia, Karsten Bartels, Patrick J McCormick, Robert B Schonberger, and Leif Saager.
• From the Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (S.K., M.T.V., T.Z.D., N.J.S., D.A.C., A.M.S., M.R.M., L.S.) Center for Observational and Real World Evidence, Merck & Co. Inc, Kenilworth, New Jersey (L.D.B.) Department of Anesthesiology, Beaumont Health, Royal Oak, Michigan (R.G.S.) Department of Anesthesiology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (A.B., R.B.S.) Department of Anesthesiology, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado (K.B.) Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York (P.J.M.). Current position: Department of Anesthesiology, University Medical Center Goettingen, Lower Saxony, Germany (L.S.).
• Anesthesiology. 2020 Jun 1; 132 (6): 137113811371-1381.

BackgroundFive percent of adult patients undergoing noncardiac inpatient surgery experience a major pulmonary complication. The authors hypothesized that the choice of neuromuscular blockade reversal (neostigmine vs. sugammadex) may be associated with a lower incidence of major pulmonary complications.MethodsTwelve U.S. Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group hospitals were included in a multicenter observational matched-cohort study of surgical cases between January 2014 and August 2018. Adult patients undergoing elective inpatient noncardiac surgical procedures with general anesthesia and endotracheal intubation receiving a nondepolarizing neuromuscular blockade agent and reversal were included. Exact matching criteria included institution, sex, age, comorbidities, obesity, surgical procedure type, and neuromuscular blockade agent (rocuronium vs. vecuronium). Other preoperative and intraoperative factors were compared and adjusted in the case of residual imbalance. The composite primary outcome was major postoperative pulmonary complications, defined as pneumonia, respiratory failure, or other pulmonary complications (including pneumonitis; pulmonary congestion; iatrogenic pulmonary embolism, infarction, or pneumothorax). Secondary outcomes focused on the components of pneumonia and respiratory failure.ResultsOf 30,026 patients receiving sugammadex, 22,856 were matched to 22,856 patients receiving neostigmine. Out of 45,712 patients studied, 1,892 (4.1%) were diagnosed with the composite primary outcome (3.5% sugammadex vs. 4.8% neostigmine). A total of 796 (1.7%) patients had pneumonia (1.3% vs. 2.2%), and 582 (1.3%) respiratory failure (0.8% vs. 1.7%). In multivariable analysis, sugammadex administration was associated with a 30% reduced risk of pulmonary complications (adjusted odds ratio, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.63 to 0.77), 47% reduced risk of pneumonia (adjusted odds ratio, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.62), and 55% reduced risk of respiratory failure (adjusted odds ratio, 0.45; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.56), compared to neostigmine.ConclusionsAmong a generalizable cohort of adult patients undergoing inpatient surgery at U.S. hospitals, the use of sugammadex was associated with a clinically and statistically significant lower incidence of major pulmonary complications.

This article appears in the collections: Neuromuscular myths: the lies we tell ourselves and Is sugammadex as good as we think?.

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