Efficacy of aprepitant for nausea in patients with head and neck cancer receiving daily cisplatin therapy.

BACKGROUND

Although efficacy of aprepitant for suppressing emesis associated with single-dose cisplatin has been demonstrated, there are limited data on the antiemetic effect of this oral neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist during daily administration of cisplatin. Accordingly, we investigated the efficacy and safety of aprepitant in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) receiving combination therapy with cisplatin and 5-FU (FP therapy).

METHODS

Twenty patients with HNC were prospectively studied who received a triple antiemetic regimen comprising granisetron (40 μg/kg on Days 1-4), dexamethasone (8 mg on Days 1-4), and aprepitant (125 mg on day 1 and 80 mg on days 2-5) with FP therapy (cisplatin 20 mg/m2 on days 1-4; 5-FU 400 mg/m2 on days 1-5) (aprepitant group). We also retrospectively studied another 20 HNC patients who received the same regimen except for aprepitant (control group).

RESULTS

For efficacy endpoints based on nausea, the aprepitant group showed significantly better results, including a higher rate of complete response (no vomiting and no salvage therapy) for the acute phase (p=0.0342), although there was no marked difference between the two groups with regard to percentage of patients in whom vomiting was suppressed. There were no clinically relevant adverse reactions to aprepitant.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggested that a triple antiemetic regimen containing aprepitant is safe and effective for HNC patients receiving daily cisplatin therapy.