General anaesthesia is a medically induced coma and loss of protective reflexes resulting from the administration of one or more general anaesthetic agents. A variety of medications may be administered, with the overall aim of ensuring sleep, amnesia, relaxation of skeletal muscles, and loss of control of reflexes. The optimal combination of these agents for any given patient and procedure is typically selected by an anaesthesiologist.
Knowledge of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) risk factors allows anesthesiologists to optimize the use of prophylactic regimens. Female gender, nonsmoking status, history of PONV or motion sickness in a child's parent or sibling, intense preoperative anxiety, certain ethnicities or surgery types are well established PONV risk factors.
A study in Japanese patients who experienced PONV following general anesthesia with propofol, showed that those with a homozygous mutation (GG) at rs1800497 were more likely to experience PONV compared to those with the AG or AA genotypes.
Related to:
Propofol