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Incidence of Bradycardia

The sympathectomy occurring in patients receiving SAB frequently results in a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate. The bradycardia that may occur post-spinal has a reported incidence of 13% in non-obstetric patients and occurs in conjunction with hypotension. However, when analyzing the ability of prophylactic ondansetron to mitigate the incidence of bradycardia post-spinal, the evidence is inconclusive. 

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          Tubog et al [7] concluded that the incidence of bradycardia was significantly lower in those that received prophylactic ondansetron.  This systematic review with meta-analysis [7] contained a total of 13 RCTs and 1,224 participants; similarly, in a meta-analysis evaluating 10 RCTs with 863 patients. Gao et al [25] concluded the prophylactic administration of ondansetron effectively mitigated the incidence of bradycardia. However, a large number of RCTs [3, 8, 10, 12–16, 23, 26–29] within the literature suggest there are no statistically significant differences in heart rate or bradycardia when ondansetron intervention groups are compared with placebo. In the randomized double-blinded controlled trial performed by Marashi et al [9], which contained 210 patients ages 20-50, there was no significant evidence that prophylactic administration of ondansetron had any effect on heart rate. In an RCT containing 91 patients, Terkawi et al [26] found the incidence of bradycardia was approximately 15% in the placebo group as well as the ondansetron intervention group. In an RCT containing a group of 70 patients, Mohamed et al [27] found there was no significant difference in incidences of bradycardia between the experimental and control groups. In a similar RCT, Tatikonda et al [23] observed no bradycardia in either the control or experimental group. 

 

Insufficient Evidence

 Manystudies had variations in the number of patients included in experimental and control groups, with significant heterogeneity in studied patient populations.
 

At present, the literature does not consistently demonstrate the ability of ondansetron to mitigate significant changes in heart rate or the incidence of bradycardia following SAB. 

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