The oral combination of netupitant and palonosetron improves control of overall and delayed phase nausea in patients receiving highly emetic chemotherapy (HEC) and non-anthracycline and cyclophosphamide-based moderately emetic chemotherapy (non-AC MEC), an evaluation reported at the 2014 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium in Boston, Massachusetts (Abstract #169).
Researchers evaluated three studies that investigated the use of NEPA, a fixed-dose oral combination of netupitant, a new neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist, and palonosetron, a second generation 5-HT3 antagonist. In all three randomized studies, NEPA was administered as netupitant 300 mg plus palonosetron 0.5 mg.
The first study, which compared NEPA plus dexamethasone versus oral palonosetron plus dexamethasone in patients receiving HEC, a statistically significant difference was observed during the overall and delayed phase of nausea (P≤0.05).
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The second study, which compared the same interventions as the previous study but in patients receiving AC MEC, a statistically significant difference was observed during the overall and delayed phase of nausea also (P≤0.05).
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The third study investigated NEPA plus dexamethasone in patients receiving HEC and non-AC MEC. Researchers found that 91% of patients had no significant nausea during the acute phase, 85% had no significant nausea during the delayed phase, and 84% had no significant nausea during overall phases.
This evaluation comes only 2 weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Akynzeo (NEPA) for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
