RESUMO
UNLABELLED: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting is one of the major side effects of antiblastic treatment in cancer patients, seriously affecting both the compliance of the patient to therapy and his or her quality of life. OBJECTIVE: The Authors present their experience in the use of ondansetron in 47 patients receiving 186 cycles of chemotherapy for breast or genital neoplasms. RESULTS: Successful control of vomiting was achieved in the first 24 hours, in 74% of the cycles containing cisplatin and 82% of the cycles without cisplatin, if ondansetron was used. On delayed vomiting the difference in results was not as striking as on acute emesis. CONCLUSIONS: The major side effects with ondansetron were headaches (42.4%) and constipation (48.9%). As expected, no extra-pyramidal symptoms were observed in this group, versus 13.3% of the patients treated with metoclopramide.