Evaluation of Effect of Ondansetron on Nausea and Vomiting after Elective Cholecystectomy Surgery in Women Older than 40 Years

Postoperative nausea and vomiting is a common complication that cause patient’s illness, increase of hospitalization duration and costs, and in severe cases lead to dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, aspiration and pneumonia and even opening of surgical site sutures. Giving attention to positive effect of Ondansetron in decreasing this complication we decided to evaluate its effect as prophylaxis and compare it with Dexamethasone as a gold standard and routine agent. This project is an interventional study that has done in year 2010 in Alzahra hospital of Isfahan, Iran. In this study 64 women older than 40 years whose candidate for an elective cholecystectomy surgery were studied in 2 groups. Patients were divided randomly to 2 groups: case and control. Control group received Dexamethasone and case group received Ondansetron before surgery. 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours after surgery the incidence of nausea and vomiting in patients were compared between 2 groups. The frequency of nausea and vomiting in 4, 8 and 12 hours after surgery was significantly lower in Ondansetron group but in 24 hours after surgery there was no difference between two groups. Repeated measure ANOVA test also demonstrated that the trend of improvement of nausea and vomiting in 24 hours after surgery was significantly better in Ondansetron group. According to results of this study, Ondansetron has optimal effect in control of nausea and vomiting after elective cholecystectomy surgery and if there is no contraindication, we can prescribe it as prophylaxis.