Objective: To evaluate the association of anti-emetic efficacy of ondansetron with 18792A>G polymorphism in the target gene of 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 subtype B.
Methods: The prospective clinical study was conducted at Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi and the genetic analysis was carried out at Institute of Biomedical and Genetic Engineering, Islamabad from August 2012 to September 2013. The subjects enrolled were undergoing elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy under general anaesthesia. All the patients were given anti-emetic ondansetron (4mg) intravenously 30 minutes before the end of surgery. Within the first two hours after surgery the response to ondansetron was noted down. Patients with the complaints of vomiting and those who had no vomiting were analysed for 18792A>G polymorphism using polymerase chain reaction- restriction fragment length polymorphism method.
Results: Of the 350 patients, 183(52%) had complaints of vomiting and 167(48%) had no such complaints. Overall, 195(56%) patients had 18792AA genotype, 130(37%) had genotype AG, and 25(7%) had GG genotype. No significant association was found between the incidence of vomiting and the 18792A>G genotypes at 2 hours after surgery (p>0.05).
Conclusions: No association of anti-emetic efficacy of ondansetron with 18792A>G polymorphism in the target gene of 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3 subtype B was found.
Keywords: 18792A>G, Ondansetron, Polymorphism, Post-operative nausea vomiting..