Articles: nausea.
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Oncology nurses and patients identify nausea and vomiting as the two most distressing side effects of chemotherapy. The onset and duration of nausea and vomiting in patients receiving chemotherapy may vary. Inadequate control of emesis in the first 24 h following chemotherapy can lead to anticipatory nausea and vomiting and poor control in subsequent cycles of treatment. ⋯ Assessment should include nausea as a separate phenomenon that may occur in the absence of vomiting and can be equally, if not more, distressing. Objective measures are suitable for the assessment of vomiting, but are not available for assessment of nausea because it is a subjective phenomenon. The purpose of this article is to present evidence supporting the idea that patient reporting using a four-point scale may be a reliable indicator of the degree of nausea and antiemetic efficacy.
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Anaesth Intensive Care · Dec 1994
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialP6 acupressure and nausea and vomiting after gynaecological surgery.
We studied the effect of P6 acupressure on 46 women undergoing laparotomy for major gynaecological surgery who received patient-controlled analgesia. Half the patients received acupressure at the P6 site, the remainder received acupressure at a "sham" site. There was a reduction in the requests for anti-emetic therapy in the group receiving P6 acupressure but there was no difference in the incidence of nausea and vomiting. There was no difference in total morphine consumption between the two groups.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Optimal combination therapy with tropisetron in 445 patients with incomplete control of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
This study evaluated tropisetron (Navoban; Sandoz Pharma, Basle, Switzerland)-based combination therapy in patients who had incomplete control of chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting when using tropisetron as a single antiemetic agent. ⋯ The addition of dexamethasone significantly increases the complete response rate of both acute and delayed emesis in patients who have incomplete disease control with tropisetron alone.
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We investigated the prophylactic antiemetic effect of added low-dose infusion of propofol in patients exhibiting nausea and vomiting refractory to dexamethasone and serotonin antagonist during non-cisplatin chemotherapy for breast cancer. In a prospective open longitudinal study, 117 patients who had more than five episodes of nausea and vomiting in their first chemotherapy cycle during the first 24 hr completed the study. They received in addition to the usual prophylactic antiemetic regimen a continuous intravenous infusion of 1 mg.kg-1.hr-1 propofol started four hours before chemotherapy and continued up to 24 hr for the two subsequent cycles. ⋯ Patients were more frequently active and had more appetite during the propofol-assisted cycles. No propofol-associated side effects were observed. We conclude that the addition of a subhypnotic infusion of propofol enables better control of nausea and vomiting caused by non-cisplatin chemotherapy in the first 24 hr post-treatment.
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Granisetron is a selective serotonin3 (5-hydroxytryptamine3, 5-HT3) receptor antagonist which has significant antiemetic activity against chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. A single prophylactic intravenous dose is sufficient to control acute nausea and vomiting in approximately 60 to 70% of patients. In comparative studies, the acute antiemetic efficacy of granisetron is equivalent or superior to that of traditional antiemetic regimens even in patients receiving highly emetogenic cisplatin-containing chemotherapy. ⋯ Thus, recent data confirm that granisetron is an effective and well tolerated agent for the prophylactic treatment of chemotherapy-induced acute nausea and vomiting, with efficacy equivalent or superior to that of other currently available agents. It has a promising role to play in paediatric oncology, and is an effective agent in controlling radiotherapy-induced acute emesis. Granisetron offers comparable or superior efficacy in controlling acute nausea and vomiting with a much simpler dosage regimen than that of traditional antiemetic regimens.