The Impact of Enhanced Recovery Protocols Regarding Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting Following Sleeve Gastrectomy under Triple Prophylaxis: A Controlled Randomized Study

Following a sleeve gastrectomy, Post-Operative Nausea And Vomiting (PONV) is a typical issue. Furthermore, several prophylactic techniques have been developed, such as preventive antiemetic and accelerated Recovery After Surgery (ERAS). However, PONV has not entirely disappeared, and clinicians are still working to lower PONV incidence.

Our goal was to evaluate how adopting Enhanced Recovery Protocols (ERAS) affects Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting (PONV) in comparison to standard care protocol after Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy (LSG) while receiving triple antiemetic prophylaxis.

The objective of this study was to verify that the ERAS procedure is crucial for lowering PONV despite the use of an efficient and effective antiemetic.

This is a computer-generated randomized clinical trial. Haloperidol, dexamethasone, and ondansetron were administered to all patients undergoing elective LSG, 29 patients within an ERAS protocol, and 29 within a standard care protocol. The primary finding was the incidence of PONV within 36 hours following LSG. The time to initially administer rescue antiemetic medication, number of rescue antiemetic medication administrations, postoperative opioid consumption, oral fluid tolerance, complications, and QoR-15 questionnaire for quality of recovery were the secondary outcomes.

Within the first 36 hours following LSG, the incidence of PONV in the ERAS group was 17.20%, while in the non-ERAS group, it was 51.7%, with P<0.012 and higher PONV severity (P<0.021) in the non-ERAS group. The ERAS group took a longer time (6 hours) for the first rescue antiemetic medicine than the Non-ERAS group (2 hours), with P<0.001 and significantly less number of patients (20.7%) needing rescue antiemetic, compared to the Non-ERAS group (65.5%), with P<0.001. The dosage of nalbuphine needed by the ERAS group was lower (2.7±2.8) than the non-ERAS group (19.9±6.0). Regarding the QoR-15 scores, there was a significant difference in the two groups' overall performance (P <0.001). Between the two groups, there were no significant complications following surgery.

This study reveals that even though triple antiemetic prophylaxis was used, the ERAS protocol had a beneficial effect on PONV when compared to the standard care approach.

NCT05996887.