Efficacy and safety of multiple doses of NEPA without dexamethasone in preventing nausea and vomiting induced by multiple-day and high-dose chemotherapy in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma undergoing autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a phase IIa, multicenter study.

Despite the availability of several antiemetics, clinical findings show that control of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) continues to be a serious concern for hematological patients, mainly for those receiving multiple-day (MD) and high-dose (HD) chemotherapy (CT). For CINV prophylaxis, 5-hydroxytryptamine type-3 receptor antagonists (5HT-RAs) and neurokinin 1 receptor antagonists (NK-RAs) are usually administered together with dexamethasone, which may increase the risk of serious infections in patients undergoing myeloablative treatment. The rationale of this multicenter, open-label and phase IIa study was to explore the efficacy of multiple doses of NEPA (netupitant/palonosetron) given as an every-other-day regimen without dexamethasone in preventing CINV in patients with relapsed-refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (R/R-NHL), eligible for autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and treated with MD-HD-CT.