Evaluation of prophylactic anti-emetic effect of Dexamethasone in patients undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy in comparison with Metoclopramide and placebo.

To evaluate the prophylactic anti-emetic effect of dexamethasone we are going to run a double blinded placebo controlled clinical trial in Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. In this study all patients with an age ranging 18 to 60 years, who are undergoing general anesthesia for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy and consent to enroll in this study, will participate. However patients who have a history of motion sickness, any intestinal diseases or those who had received any anti-emetic agents within 24h before surgery will be excluded. Target sample size for this study is 160 patients and these enrolled patients will be allocated randomly to three groups of intervention, control intervention and placebo. Patients in intervention group will receive 8 mg of dexamethasone intravenously just before induction of anesthesia while those who are in control group will receive 10 mg of metoclopramide and those who are in placebo group only receive Normal Saline intravenously. For all these patients each episodes of post-operative vomit or sensation of post-operative nausea will be recorded 7 times during first 24 hour after surgical recovery without knowledge of if or which anti-emetic agents the patient had received. The anesthetic condition for all enrolled patient will be standardized. Laparoscopic cholecystectomies will perform as a standard procedure with pre-operative cholangiography and will be similar for all patients. The duration of the surgery, anesthesia, and CO2 insufflation will be recorded as well.

Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital, Shahed UniversityMD dissertation