Background

Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) after bariatric surgery is a common issue. The general surgery literature has shown that a preoperative Scopolamine patch is effective in safely preventing PONV. Our protocol was modified to include a preoperative scopolamine patch for each laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy patient. Seeing that this had not been studied in the bariatric surgery population, we proposed this study to evaluate if this change to our protocol was effective in preventing PONV.

Methods

After obtaining IRB approval we performed a retrospective chart review. Demographic information was collected and analyzed. The use of any rescue antiemetic and subjective PONV was examined. The control and study group each included 30 patients. Statistical analysis was performed to determine significance (p<0.05.)

Results

There was no statistical difference in the demographics, except surgery duration (114 vs 86 minutes, p <0.0007.) There was a trend towards decreased nausea at 6 hours postoperatively (60% vs 37%, p<0.1) in the study group. However, there was no difference between number of postoperative antiemetics given between the two groups. The length of stay was the same (30.66 vs 29.99hrs, p<0.25) for both groups.

Conclusions

In our preliminary study, there was no significant change in postoperative nausea or need for postoperative antiemetics with the administration of a preoperative scopolamine patch in patients undergoing a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy. Further studies should be performed to further elucidate any significant benefits of adding a scopolamine patch to preoperative bariatric surgery protocols.