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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian Journal of Neurotrauma 2022; 19(02): 122-126
DOI: 10.1055/s-0040-1717213
Brief Report

Safety of Metoclopramide in Traumatic Brain Injury Patients

Said Al Jaadi
1   College of Medicine and Health Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
,
Yahya Al-Kindi
1   College of Medicine and Health Science, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman
,
Tariq Al-Saadi 
2   Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
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Abstract

Introduction Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) occur due to severe head assault to a hard object, with headache and vomiting being amongst the most common presenting symptoms. Metoclopramide is an old antiemetic agent that has been used widely for nausea and vomiting in TBI patients.

Aim A systematic review of the literature to investigate the safety of metoclopramide in treating TBI patients.

Methods A literature review was conducted in six databases, where we determined the pertinence of a study to the inclusion criteria by assessing the title, keywords, and abstracts. Five studies were found to be relevant. Data were extracted using multiple variables that were formulated incongruent with the study aim and then further analyzed.

Results The collective sample size was 93 patients with an average of age 38.5 years. As much as 51.6% were male and 48.6% were females. Most patients received 10 mg metoclopramide IV with a percentage of 77.4%, while only 22.5% received 20 mg IV metoclopramide. Seventy-one patients received metoclopramide alone and 22 received combination therapy. Headache was the most common reported side effect (46.2%), followed by anxiety and drowsiness with (39.7%) and (27.9%), respectively. Fatigue was reported in 24.7%, while dystonia was the least common and developed in only 5.3% of patients.

Conclusion Metoclopramide is a common medication used to treat TBI patients in the emergency department. However, the review demonstrated that the central nervous system (CNS) side effect is excepted. Treatments with lower CNS side effects may be better options.

Keywords

traumatic head injury - metoclopramide - safety - side effect - headache - vomiting


Publication History

Article published online:
29 September 2020

© 2020. Neurotrauma Society of India. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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