Wearing noise-cancelling headphones during surgery helps prevent nausea and vomiting in patients undergoing procedures. Huayue Liu and colleagues at the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University in Suzhou, China, presented these findings at the Anesthesiology conference in San Diego.
The research team recruited 192 patients who underwent keyhole gynaecological surgery under general anaesthesia. Half of the 192 patients were randomly assigned noise-blocking ear defenders, which they wore from the beginning of anaesthesia until the conclusion of the surgery.
All patients received standard anaesthesia and anti-nausea medication during the study. 35 per cent of patients wearing ear defenders experienced nausea or vomiting within 48 hours of surgery, compared to 52 per cent of patients without the protection.
Symptoms were less severe among patients whose hearing had been protected. Liu recorded average noise levels of 66 decibels during the study.
Liu stated, "The biological plausibility is that general anaesthesia produces unconsciousness without necessarily eliminating all neural processing of sound." Vigi Katlowitz at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston said, "That data is really encouraging and is actually in line with decades of research showing that anaesthesia is not simply an off switch."
