Yakugaku zasshi : Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society of Japan
-
Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) with morphine therapy develops in more than 60% of patients after surgery, markedly reducing patient QOL. The prophylactic effect of several antiemetics has already been studied, but evaluations, and even those using the same drug, are not uniform. The present research involved a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on prophylactic drug therapy for PONV in patients receiving morphine for the treatment of postoperative pain. ⋯ These results suggest that the three drugs are effective in prophylactic treatment for PONV. Of them, dexamethasone used as a prophylactic drug for PONV provided the best results. Dexamethasone was shown to reduce the incidence of PONV from 66-80% to 16-50% with a dose of 1.25 to 10 mg and to be suitable as a first drug of choice.