Midline location of tumour is a risk factor for postoperative vomiting in children requiring posterior fossa tumour resection.

Midline location of tumour is a risk factor for postoperative vomiting in children requiring posterior fossa tumour resection. Can J Neurosci Nurs. 2009;31(3):10-4 Authors: Neufeld S, Dundon B, Yu H, Newburn-Cook C, Drummond J Abstract Children requiring posterior fossa brain tumour surgery form a unique and significant neuro-oncology population. Postoperative vomiting (POV) is a problem for these children. Also, severe vomiting that is refractory to treatment has been seen clinically in these children, but it is not well described in the literature. A subgroup of children requiring surgery for posterior fossa brain tumours (n=153) from a larger six-year retrospective chart audit (n=249) at two Canadian children's hospitals were reviewed for the presence of no, mild, moderate, and severe POV. Inter-rater reliability was established at 94% following a blinded process of comparing POV severity rankings between two data collector/researchers. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion in order to establish a consensus severity score. Findings from multivariable logistic regression analyses indicated that when age and intraoperative use of ondansetron were controlled for, the location of a tumour in a midline location had no overall effect (adjusted OR=1.37, 95% confidence interval: 0.64-2.96, p=0.43), but greater odds of severe vomiting (adjusted OR=7.08, 95% confidence interval: 2.56-19.64, p<0.001). These results support theori...
Source: Canadian Journal of Neuroscience Nursing - Category: Nursing Tags: Can J Neurosci Nurs Source Type: research