Giridharan Sridharan1, Prasanthkumar M. S2, Prabha Udayakumar3
BACKGROUND Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting (PONV) is one of the most common complication along with pain following anaesthesia and surgery. The incidence of PONV remains high despite recent advances in practice of anaesthesia and in management of PONV. The incidence is further increased in patients with certain high-risk categories. Its prevention is major challenge in day to day practice of anaesthesia. Hence, we decided to evaluate the efficacy of palonosetron versus ondansetron in prevention of PONV after laparoscopic cholecystectomy under general anaesthesia.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Hundred patients of ASA grades I and II between age groups of 18-60 years posted for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy under GA were randomly selected and allocated into two groups of 50 each. Group A received ondansetron 4 mg IV and group B received palonosetron 75 mcg IV at the time of induction. Anaesthetic procedure was standardised and was common to all the patients. Postoperatively, the patients were monitored for episodes of nausea, vomiting and the need for rescue medicine for 24 hours at intervals of 0-2 hours, 2-6 hours and 6-24 hours.
RESULTS There was no difference in the demographic data between the two study groups. The incidence of nausea, vomiting and use of rescue antiemetic was significantly less in palonosetron group as compared to ondansetron group. Both the study groups did not have significant adverse effects.
