A Prospective Study of Postoperative Vomiting in Children Undergoing Different Surgical Procedures under General Anaesthesia

• Main Authors: Jaya Choudhary, S Bano, Mohib Ahmed, M N Zaidi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications 2008-01-01
• Series: Indian Journal of Anaesthesia
• Subjects: Paediatric anaesthesia;Vomiting;Postoperative; Ondansetron;Dexamethasone
• Online Access: http://www.ijaweb.org/article.asp?issn=0019-5049;year=2008;volume=52;issue=2;spage=159;epage=163;aulast=Choudhary

To identify the risk factors associated with postoperative vomiting (POV) in paediatric population undergoing common surgeries. The risk factors studied for association with POV were age> 5 years, female gender, previous history of POV/motion sickness, type of surgery and duration of anaesthesia> 45 min. A total of 100 ASA grade I and II patients of either sex aged between 2-12 years undergoing elective surgical procedures were screened for the study. All patients underwent similar anaesthe-sia protocol and received two antiemetic agents (ondansetron 0.05mg.kg-1 and dexamethasone 0.15mg.kg-1) in premedication. The patients were observed for 24 hours postoperatively for the incidence of vomiting, number of times rescue antiemetic given and any adverse reaction to antiemetic.Overall 34% patients (34/100) developed POV of which 26 had only one episode and 8 patients had 2 episodes during first 24 h. Incidence of POV was 13% (13/100) in first 4 h whereas it was 29% (29/100) in late postoperative period. In early post operative period, POV was not associated significantly with any predicted risk factors. However, age>5years, duration of anaesthesia>45 minutes and history of motion sickness/POV were significantly associated in late postoperative period(4-24h). Female gender and type of surgery were not associated with increased POV. The combination antiemetic effectively prevented POV in early postoperative period (0-4h) only but not in late postoperative period(0-24h).