Emend
Aprepitant (brand name: Emend™) is a medication, that is used in the
treatment of chemotherapy induced nausea (emesis).
Nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy remains one of the most
distressing side effects for patients undergoing treatment for cancer.
Depending upon the chemotherapy agents or regimens given, up to 90%
of patients may suffer from some form of chemotherapy-induced nausea
and vomiting (CINV). Besides significantly reducing a patient’s quality of
life, symptoms from CINV can be severely debilitating and often result in
patients refusing further courses of chemotherapy, which minimizes
chances for an optimal outcome. Furthermore, CINV is burdensome on
the medical system, as nurses must spend follow-up time with phone
calls or patient visits in addressing this issue. The time spent in dealing
with CINV creates a financial impact, and steals time from the healthcare
staff who could otherwise attend to other patients or medical issues.
A multi-institutional clinical trial was recently conducted to evaluate the
combination of Aloxi™ and Emend® in the prevention of CINV following
several different chemotherapy regimens that were moderately or
highly emetogenic.
Complete responses (no emesis and no additional medication for nausea
and vomiting) was achieved in 90% of patients during the acute phase, and
80% of patients in the delayed phase. During both the acute phase (first
24 hours) and the delayed phase (24-120 hours), 97% of patients
experienced no emesis.