Numerous studies on postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) have been carried out since the early days of contemporary surgery. The incidence of PONV has been greatly reduced in recent years and new drugs for PONV keep evolving in the market; however, a substantial number of patients are still under the threat of PONV. Female gender, non-smokers, a history of PONV/motion sickness, and postoperative opioid use are four well-recognized risk factors of PONV. Many potential risk factors reported in previous studies were not consistently presented as predictors for PONV. Two questions then arise; are risk factors clinical setting dependent and are risk factors modifiable? We attempted to answer the questions through a comprehensive review of perioperative records of surgical patients from the Trauma Department of our hospital. As nausea is subjective and no standard is applicable for its measurement, postoperative vomiting (POV) was used as an endpoint in this study. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to address the POV issue in surgical trauma patients. A total of 855 patients were enrolled in this study after excluding age below 20 years old, total intravenous anesthesia, desflurane anesthesia, or records with missing data. Our results showed that female gender (OR 4.89) is the strongest predicting factor, followed by a less potent predicting factor—more intraoperative opioid consumption (OR 1.07)—which favor more POV. More intraoperative crystalloid supply (OR 0.71) and a higher body weight (OR 0.9) favor less POV. Other potential risk factors did not reach statistical significance in this study as independent risk factors. Our results also showed that when the intraoperative crystalloid infusion rate is greater than 4 mL/kg/h (OR 0.20), it favors a lower rate of POV; when intraoperative opioid consumption is greater than 12 mg morphine equivalents, MME (OR 1.87), it favors a higher rate of POV. We concluded that dominance of any independent risk factor over other risk factors depends on how individual factors interact with the clinical setting. Some risk factors could be modified, and a cut-off value could be derived to facilitate a better plan for POV prevention.

Potential risk factors for postoperative vomiting (POV) are important for daily anesthesia practice. To identify the risk factors associated with POV we retrospectively reviewed 553 adult patients who underwent scheduled simple laparoscopic cholecystectomy under sevoflurane-based general anesthesia between January and December 2018. Patients who experienced POV were predominantly women, had lower body weight, and higher ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) physical status. The POV group showed female sex predominance, lower body weight, and higher ASA physical status, with a significant difference when compared with the non-POV group. In univariate analysis, female sex and Apfel scores of 2, 3, and 4 were associated with a higher POV incidence. Age > 70 years, higher body weight, and ASA physical status III were associated with a lower POV incidence. In multivariate logistic regression, sex, age, Apfel score, and intraoperative crystalloid infusion rate were POV predictive factors. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed a negative association between the intraoperative crystalloid infusion rate and POV occurrence with an area under the curve of 0.73 (p = 0.001). The cutoff intraoperative crystalloid infusion rate was 2 mL/kg/h with 82% sensitivity and 49% specificity (≥2 mL/kg/h was associated with a lower POV incidence vs. <2 mL/kg/h (OR, 95% CI; 0.52 [0.33–0.83])). To decrease POV in these patients, identifying high-risk factors and an intraoperative crystalloid administration of ≥2 mL/kg/h should be considered in patients undergoing LC under sevoflurane-based general anesthesia.

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