Prophylactic antiemetics for adults receiving intravenous opioids in the acute care setting.

BACKGROUND

Physicians often prescribe opioids for pain in the acute care setting. Nausea and vomiting are well-described adverse events, occurring in over one-third of patients. Prophylactic antiemetics may be one option to reduce opioid-associated nausea and vomiting. However, these medications also have their own adverse effects, so it is important to understand their efficacy and safety prior to routine use. This is a review of randomized controlled trials comparing prophylactic antiemetics versus placebo or standard care for preventing opioid-associated nausea and vomiting.

OBJECTIVES

To assess the effects of prophylactic antiemetics for nausea and vomiting in adults (aged 16 years or older) receiving intravenous opioids in the acute care setting.

SEARCH METHODS

We searched CENTRAL (the Cochrane Library), MEDLINE (OVID), Embase (OVID) from inception to January 2022, and Google Scholar (17 January 2022). We also searched the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) and screened reference lists.

SELECTION CRITERIA

We included randomized controlled trials of prophylactic antiemetics versus placebo or standard care in adults prior to receiving an intravenous opioid.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Two review authors (MG, JNC) independently determined the eligibility of each study according to the inclusion criteria. Two review authors (MG, GDP) then independently extracted data, assessed risk of bias, and determined the certainty of evidence using GRADE. Our primary outcomes were the occurrence of nausea, vomiting, and adverse events. Secondary outcomes included nausea severity, number of vomiting episodes, and number of participants requiring antiemetic rescue therapy. We presented outcomes as risk ratios (RR) for dichotomous data (e.g. presence of vomiting, presence of nausea, number of participants requiring rescue medication, adverse events) and mean difference (MD) or standardized mean difference for continuous data (e.g. number of vomiting episodes, nausea severity) with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

MAIN RESULTS

We included three studies involving 527 participants (187 women and 340 men) with a mean age of 42 years.  All studies used intravenous metoclopramide (10 mg) as the intervention and a placebo for the comparator. No studies assessed any other antiemetic or compared the intervention to standard care. Compared to placebo, metoclopramide did not reduce vomiting (RR 1.18, 95% CI 0.26 to 5.32; low-certainty evidence) or nausea (RR 0.55; 95% CI 0.15 to 2.03; low-certainty evidence) and there was no difference in adverse events (RR 2.34, 95% CI 0.47 to 11.61; low-certainty evidence).  No data were available regarding the number of vomiting episodes. Metoclopramide did reduce the severity of nausea compared with placebo (MD -0.49, 95% CI -0.75 to -0.23; low-certainty evidence) but did not reduce the need for rescue medication (RR 1.86, 95% CI 0.17 to 20.16; low-certainty evidence).  Two studies were at unclear risk of bias for random sequence generation, one for blinding of outcome assessors, one for incomplete outcome data, and two for selective reporting. The studies were at low risk of bias for all remaining components.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There was no evidence that prophylactic metoclopramide affected the risk of vomiting, nausea, or the need for rescue medication when provided prior to intravenous opioids in the acute care setting. There was a clinically insignificant difference in nausea severity when comparing prophylactic metoclopramide with placebo. Overall, the evidence was of low certainty. Future research could better delineate the effects of prophylactic antiemetics on specific populations, and new studies are needed to evaluate the use of other prophylactic antiemetic agents, for which there were no data.