Ondansetron Oral Dissolving Tablets are Superior to Normal Saline Alone for Prehospital Nausea

Prehospital Emergency Care, Vol. 16, No. 4, Pages 463-468

While simply on a common sense approach this does seem to be a study that would prove beneficial for the argument for antiemetics , the authors state that while antiemetics have been shown to be effective in multiple hospital settings, but few studies have been done in the prehospital environment.

The authors hypotheses was that the amount of normal saline administered during an emergency medical services (EMS) transport was not related to a change in nausea and vomiting and that the addition of the ondansetron orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) would decrease the degree of nausea.

Data were collected from 274 transports in phase 1 (saline only) and 372 transports in phase 2(post introduction of ondansetron). In phase 1 of the study, 178 of 274 patients (65%) received normal saline (mean volume ± standard deviation = 265 ± 192 mL). There was no significant correlation between the nausea visual analog scale change and the amount of fluid administration in either phase of the study. Conversely, during phase 2, patients receiving ondansetron ODT showed significant improvement in both measures of nausea. The difference in nausea improvement between phase 1 and phase 2 was significant (difference in VAS change: 24.6; 95%).

The authors found that there was no improvement in patient nausea related to quantity of saline alone during an EMS transport, but the addition of ondansetron ODT resulted in a significant improvement in degree of nausea.

http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/10903127.2012.695430