Prevention of Nausea and Vomiting in Oncology

Background & Aims. Despite significant progress achieved over last 25 years, nausea and especially vomiting remain basic side effects of chemotherapy affecting patients’ quality of life. Modern antiemetic therapy permits to reduce the frequency of acute vomiting to 20–30 %, whereas the effectiveness of nausea prevention is higher. Available domestic publications do not describe fundamentals of the antiemetic therapy during treatment with cytostatic agents. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of itopride in combined antiemetic therapy for prevention of acute nausea and vomiting, as well as in single drug therapy for arresting delayed vomiting. Methods. 30 patients were enrolled in the study (breast cancer — 10 patients, ovarian cancer — 8 patients, gastric cancer — 2 patients, colorectal cancer — 5 patients, and lung cancer — 5 patients): 25 women and 5 men aged from 40 to 70 years. All patients received chemotherapy earlier, which had unfavorable effects on the tolerability of subsequent therapy. All patients underwent chemotherapy with different degrees of emetogenicity during the study. Results. The study has demonstrated that overall effectiveness of a combination of itopride with 5-HT3 receptor antagonists for prevention of acute vomiting was equal to 100 %. Overall effectiveness of itopride for prevention of delayed vomiting was equal to 80 %. Conclusion. The combination of itopride with 5-HT3 receptor antagonists can be recommended for prevention of delayed vomiting in moderately emetogenic chemotherapeutic regimens.