Clinical Trial Summary
Postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) is a quite common complication affecting patients
undergoing general anesthesia. There are a few pharmacological agents of well known
effectiveness in reducing the risk of PONV. One of them is droperidol, which is a
butyrophenone derivant. It has been widely used for the prevention and treatment of PONV due
to its high effectiveness and low cost. Though, droperidol has a relevant side effect, that
is a repolarization prolongation. This can lead to life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias:
polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (torsades de pointes, TdP) that can degenerate into
ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. This was a reason why in 2001 the FDA issued a
"black box" warning on droperidol. Ever since papers focused on this problem have described
the influence of small doses of droperidol on TdP genesis as weak. This could be explained by
the fact, that QT/QTc (corrected QT) interval prolongation, which represents prolonged
cardiac repolarization on ECG, is not the sole determinant of a drug's potential to cause
arrhythmia. Another electrocardiographical marker of torsadogenic action is increased
transmural dispersion of repolarization (TDR). TDR represents differences in the
repolarization between myocardial "layers" (like epicardium, endocardium, myocardium cells).
It is believed that the induction of QT/QTc lengthening must coexist with TDR increase at the
same time to promote torsadogenic changes.
It has been known, on the basis of research, that females have been more potent to
torsadogenic actions of pharmacological agents than males. That could be related to estrogen
influence on ECG parameters, which had been proven on animal model. It hasn't been
investigated, whether gender is an important factor when considering droperidol's
torsadogenic potential.
The aim of this study is to answer a hypothesis, that women are more potent to torsadogenic
actions of droperidol in comparison with men.