Use of erythromycin as a prokinetic for cesarean section with four hours of fasting

Abstract

Preoperative fasting is essential as a prerequisite for most surgeries, either elective procedures or relative emergencies. However, the ideal conditions for surgery are not always fulfilled at the time of approaching a patient, and the lack of fasting is a factor that could endanger patient’s life, being a major risk factor for bronchoaspiration of gastric content. Until now there is a small pharmacological list of medications that with different function and intensity accelerate gastric emptying, erythromycin is not officially on this list. Despite the fact that it has already been widely used for this purpose in the field of endoscopic procedures, there are not enough reports about its efficacy in emergency surgery, specifically C-section. This article, in addition to offering a brief summary of this macrolide, presents a case in which after erythromycin administration to a pregnant patient with a recent food intake, the ideal conditions for surgery were obtained only four hours later.