Publication:

A study to assess the effect of a single pre-operative dose of steroid in major abdominal surgery outcomes

Background Abdominal surgeries are associated with an appreciably high rate of post-operative nausea, vomiting and pain due to the severity of the proinflammatory cytokine response arising from peritoneal trauma. This study was designed to study the efficacy of single pre-operative dose of dexamethasone in reducing the incidence of post-operative nausea, vomiting and pain after major abdominal surgeries.

Methods The study was prospective, randomized and double blinded. 60 adult patients of either sex, scheduled for elective laparotomy from March 2012 to October 2013 were included in the study.

Results In this study 86.7% of patients in the saline group experienced nausea, whereas only 13.3% of patients in dexamethasone group experienced nausea. Chi square value is 32.67 and p value is<0.05. Among the patients who received dexamethasone only 10% experienced vomiting, where as in the saline group 33.3% developed vomiting. Chi square value is 4.812 and p value is 0.029. This is statistically significant as p value is<0.05. Among the patients who experienced very severe pain 100% were from the saline group, whereas none of the patients in dexamethasone group experienced very severe pain. Among the patients who experienced severe pain 85.7% belonged to saline group, and only 14.3% were from the dexamethasone group. The p value is<0.05.

Conclusions It was found that single pre-operative dose of dexamethasone (8 mg) reduces post-operative nausea, vomiting, pain significantly after abdominal surgery.