Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting in Surgical
Gastroenterology
Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) and acute
postoperative pain are the most harmful symptoms for
the patient. Nevertheless, a high-dose postoperative pain
therapy can lead to PONV, beside special anesthetic procedures.
Although pain therapy has become more and
more comfortable, an incidence of PONV of 30% has
been reported in in- and outpatient procedures in the literature.
78% of the responsible surgeons declared PONV
as a daily routine problem, 82% would like to have a better
PONV management. In contrast to this, only 28% of
the general surgical patients received an antiemetic therapy.
This review analyzes the actual procedures for prophylaxis
and therapy of PONV. A prophylaxis with
antiemetic drugs can prevent PONV in 85% of the patients.
A combination of PONV-relieving drugs resulted
in 96% of PONV-free patients. The responsible surgeon
therefore should be aware of this problem and of the
effective treatment strategies to avoid PONV.