Effect of herbal therapy to intensity chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in cancer patients.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting are the most important complications for cancer patients as its prevalence has been reported to be about 54-96 percent. ginger has been used for medicinal purposes including nausea and vomiting in traditional Persian, Chinese and Indian pharmacopoeia. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of complimentary ginger among cancer patients experiencing nausea and vomiting. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A randomized cross-over clinical trial was carried out on patients under chemotherapy treatment for at least 2 episodes of chemotherapy and at least 2 episodes of previous experience of nausea and vomiting. Subjects of this study received 2 different complementary regimes with 250mg ginger capsule in regime A and placebo capsule in regime B. subjects of the study were crossed over to receive the other regime during the two cycles of chemotherapy. RESULTS: Findings of the study indicated that subjects receiving ginger showed significant reduction in frequency and intensity of nausea and vomiting compared to placebo receiving subjects. CONCLUSIONS: According to finding of this study, in accordance to most of other researches, ginger is an effective agent to reduce chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. However, there are some researches supporting ginger as a moderate antiemetic agent among cancerous patients under chemotherapy.