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Ondansetron Reduces Vomiting, Hospital Admissions in Children With Gastroenteritis CHAPEL HILL, NC -- September 2, 2008 -- Ondansetron helps reduce vomiting, the need for intravenous fluids, and hospital admissions in children with acute gastroenteritis, according to a study published in the September issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine. Current practice guidelines do not recommend that doctors give medications to children with gastroenteritis, but several recent studies suggest that ondansetron might be helpful. "Children under the age of 5 years generally have between 1 and 3 episodes of gastroenteritis each year, and about 1 of every 25 children in the country will be hospitalised for gastroenteritis by the time they're 5," said Lisa Ross DeCamp, MD, then of University of North Carolina Children's Hospital, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, now at the University of Michigan, Flint, Michigan. To find out if there was valid scientific support for giving antiemetics to children with gastroenteritis, Dr. DeCamp and colleagues conducted a systematic review of all the medical literature studying the use of antiemetics for gastroenteritis. They identified 11 previously published studies evaluating the safety and effectiveness of seven different antiemetics that were given to children seen in hospital emergency departments. The authors found that antiemetics other than ondansetron should not be used in children with gastroenteritis. A meta-analysis found that ondansetron reduced further vomiting after receipt in the emergency department. Importantly, it also reduced the likelihood that children would require intravenous fluids by nearly two thirds and halved the risk of immediate hospital admission. However, ondansetron was found to increase diarrhoea in 3 of the 6 studies. However, the authors found this increased diarrhoea did not appear to cause an increased need for further medical care. The UNC researchers concluded that future treatment guidelines should recommend the use of ondansetron in select children with gastroenteritis. SOURCE: University of North Carolina School of Medicine E-mail this page to a friend or colleague! To print, use this version