Safety and efficacy of aprepitant as mono and combination therapy for the prevention of emetogenic chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: post-marketing surveillance in China.

Background: The goal of this study was to evaluate aprepitant usage in the context of routine clinical practice with dose/regimens at the discretion of prescribers for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) treatments.

Methods: In this single arm, multicenter prospective study 1,000 patients with solid malignancies were enrolled across 21 centers in China. The primary endpoint was the rate of adverse events (AEs), including drug related AEs and serious AEs (SAEs). Secondary efficacy endpoints included the proportion of patients achieving complete response (CR; no vomiting, no nausea, and no use of rescue medication) within 120 h after highly emetogenic chemotherapy, the rates of no nausea and no vomiting, as well as quality of life (QoL). Multivariable logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine factors associated with the overall (0-120 h), acute (0-24 h) and delayed (25-120 h) CR.

Results: Of the 1,000 highly emetogenic chemotherapy treated patients enrolled in the study ≥1 AE, ≥1 drug related AE, ≥1 SAE and drug related SAE rates in 998 patients were 45.9%, 2.5%, 4.0% and 0.1%, respectively. Approximately half of the patients (455/990, 46.0%) received aprepitant as part of a 3-drug anti-CINV regimen consistent with prescribing guidelines. The overall CR (0 to 120 h) for anti-emetic drug use was 41.0%, with an acute CR of 66.0% and a delayed CR of 46.5%. The rates of no vomiting and no nausea after solely aprepitant anti-emetic therapy from 0 to 120 h were 70.9% and 43.0%, for dual anti-emetic therapy 86.9% and 64.6%, and for triple therapy 86.4% and 69.5%, respectively. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that triple anti-emetic therapy (P=0.038), male gender (P<0.001) and a history of chemotherapy (P=0.016) were significantly associated with the overall acute CR.

Conclusions: Especially as a combination treatment, aprepitant is safe and efficient for preventing CINV in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy.