Addition of aprepitant may improve vomiting control in patients receiving oxaliplatin

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

According to results presented at the ESMO 17th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, researchers have found that a three-drug combination antiemetic therapy including aprepitant or fosaprepitant significantly improved the prevention rate of nausea and vomiting in patients receiving oxaliplatin chemotherapy.

For the multicenter, open-label, phase III SENRI Trial, researchers enrolled 413 Japanese patients with colorectal cancer who were receiving oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to receive a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist plus dexamethasone with or without aprepitant or fosaprepitant during the first course of chemotherapy. All patients received aprepitant or fosaprepitant in subsequent courses.

Results showed that significantly more patients who received an NK1 antagonist achieved no vomiting overall and no vomiting in the delayed phase than those in the control arm. Researchers also found that women had higher rates of no nausea and complete protection in the aprepitant arm than the control arm.

The standard protocol for prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients receiving oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy is a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist plus dexamethasone.