Efficacy of 5-HT3 receptor antagonists (ondansetron) vs dopamine receptor antagonists (droperidol) for preventing postoperative nausea, vomiting and headache: a meta-analysis

Objective To investigate the effects of 5-hydroxytryptamine 3 receptor antagonists (ondansetron [OND]) versus dopamine receptor antagonists (droperidol [DRO]) in the prevention of postoperative nausea, vomiting (PONV) and headache by pooling data from open published studies. Methods Performed systematic electronic searches of PubMed, Embase, Google scholar and CNKI, to identify open-published prospective randomized controlled trials (RCTs) relevant to the comparison of OND versus DRO for preventing PONV and headache to be included in the present study. The pooled PONV, headache, dizziness and drowsiness were calculated based on the original data of each included study. The pooled data was presented with risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (95%CI). Results Thirteen prospective randomized clinical trials were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled PONV, post-operative nausea (PON) and positive operative vomiting (POV) were 0.67 (95%CI:0.48-0.93, p<0.05), 0.88 (95% CI:0.67-1.14, p>0.05) and 0.56 (95%CI:0.39-0.82,p<0.05) respectively for OND vs. DRO. And the overall pooled positive operative nausea and vomiting was 0.71(95%CI:0.60-0.86) by fixed effects model for OND vs. DRO. The pooled risk of postoperative headache, dizziness and drowsiness were 4.33 (95%CI:0.76-24.69, p>0.05), 0.63 (95%C1:0.21-1.87, p>0.05) and 0.48(0.28-0.81,p<0.05) respectively by fixed effect model for OND vs. DRO. Conclusion The post-operative nausea, vomiting and dizziness risks were significant decreased for patients receiving OND compared to patients receiving DRO.