Routine use of nasogastric tubes does not reduce postoperative nausea and vomiting

Routine use of a nasogastric (NG) tube has been suggested to prevent postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) despite conflicting data. Accordingly, we tested the hypothesis that routine use of a NG tube does not reduce PONV. Our work is based on data from a large trial of 4055 patients initially designed to quantify the effectiveness of combinations of antiemetic treatments for the prevention of PONV. This analysis uses propensity scores for case matching to ensure group comparability on baseline factors. Intraoperative NG tube use patients and perioperative NG tube use patients were respectively matched to nonuse patients on all available potential confounders. Matched-pairs were identified using propensity scores for 1032 patients with or without intraoperative NG tube use and 176 patients with or without perioperative NG tube use. The incidences of PONV in the intraoperative group were 44.4% vs 41.5% (P = 0.35) with and without tube use, respectively, and 27.8% vs 31.3% (P = 0.61) in the perioperative group. Our results provide evidence that routine use of a NG tube does not reduce the incidence of PONV.