European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Introduction: Nausea and vomiting have been associated for many years with the use of general anaesthetics for surgical procedures. With the change in the emphasis from an inpatient to outpatient, hospital and office-based medical/surgical enhancement, there has been increased interest in the ‘big little problem of PONV(Postoperative nausea and vomiting). The newest class of antiemetics used for prevention and treatment of  PONV (Postoperative nausea and vomiting) are serotonin (5-HT3) receptor antagonists–Ondansetron, Granisetron, Tropisetron, Dolasetron and Ramosetron. In the present study, intravenous ondansetron and  Ramosetron  were compared in the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting undergoing hysterectomy. Material and Methods: This clinical study consisting of 100 adult patients slated to undergo elective surgeries was undertaken at Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences. In this randomized, single blind clinical trial, we studied 100 patients between the ages of 23 and 65 years undergoing hysterectomy under general or spinal anaesthesia. Approval was taken from the ethical committee and written informed consent was taken from all the patients. They were randomly divided into two groups.  Group I: Patients included in this group will receive Inj. Ondansetron 4 mg just before surgery and after 12 hr. Group II: Patients included in this group will receive Inj. Ramosetron 0.3mg just before surgery only. RESULTS : In our study, in initial 6 hours total 17 patients had nausea out of which 9 belonged to group I and 8 belonged to group II. When these groups were compared the difference was statistically non-significant (p>0.05). In next 6 to 24 hours 5 patients in group I and 4 in group II had nausea (p>0.05).  However when the incidence of nausea was compared after 24 hours in group I (5 patients) and group II (1 patient) the difference was found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). Total number of patients in group I reporting nausea was 19 while it was 13 in group II, when compared it was found that group II has significantly lesser (p<0.05) occurrence of nausea. CONCLUSION: We have found that antiemetic therapy with Ramosetron at a dose of 0.3 mg is safer, well-tolerated, proved more effective and cheaper than Ondansetron 4 mg in the prevention of PONV.