Effects of Sugammadex on Time of First Postoperative Bowel Movement: A Retrospective Analysis

To determine whether time to first postoperative bowel movement after intraperitoneal surgery differs among neuromuscular blockade reversal with either anticholinesterase/anticholinergic combination vs sugammadex.

Sugammadex was introduced to our practice in October 2016. Patients were identified who underwent intraperitoneal surgery between January 1, through June 30, 2016, and January 1 through June 30, 2017, and received aminosteroid neuromuscular blockade for paralysis. Reversal was initiated with neostigmine, coadministered with glycopyrrolate (neostigmine/glycopyrrolate) for control participants and sugammadex for patients. Time to first bowel movement was determined from nursing documentation for study cohorts (2016 and 2017). We compared times to first bowel movement between cases and controls using raw and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analyses.

In the 2016 cohort, 2583 received neostigmine/glycopyrrolate. Of 2750 patients in 2017, sugammadex reversal technique was administered to 1500 patients and neostigmine/glycopyrrolate to 1250 participants. Without weighting, the groups were relatively balanced for most baseline characteristics, and after IPTW, all standardized differences were <0.035. In comparison with the 2016 and 2017 controls, sugammadex treatment was associated with faster occurrence of first bowel movement. For 2016, unweighted hazard ratio (HR) (95% confidence interval [CI]) was 1.35 (1.21-1.51) (P<.001). After IPTW, HR (95% CI) was 1.27 (1.12-1.43) (P<.001). For 2017, unweighted HR (95% CI) was 1.51 (1.31-1.72) (P<.001); after IPTW, it was 1.25 (1.08-1.45) (P =.003).

Patients undergoing intraperitoneal surgery who had aminosteroid neuromuscular blockade reversal with sugammadex had earlier first postoperative bowel movement than patients with reversal through neostigmine/glycopyrrolate.