Dextrose for post-operative nausea and vomiting prophylaxis.

Sir,

We read with great interest the article of Firouzian et al. in a recent issue of this journal.[1] The authors examined 150 patients and concluded that administration of intravenous dextrose before anaesthesia induction may be recommended as an effective method for the prophylaxis of post-operative nausea and vomiting after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The authors should be congratulated for performing a well-designed trial in an important topic in perioperative medicine.[23]

Although the study of Firouzian et al. was well designed, there are some concerns regarding their randomised trial that needs to be clarified to determine the validity of the study findings. First, we could not identify if the authors used agents for post-operative nausea and vomiting prophylaxis that are currently considered the standard of care.[45] Second, it would be important to present the post-operative opioid consumption by study groups, as this can significantly alter the primary outcome.[6] Finally, the authors excluded patients who were at high risk for post-operative nausea and vomiting; and therefore, it is likely that their findings are not generalisable to other patients beyond the patients included in this study.

We would welcome some comments to address the aforementioned issues. This would help to further validate the findings of this important study.

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Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.