Drug Reduces Post-op Vomiting

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - For people undergoing surgery, recovery could be easier with a new anti-nausea drug.

Aprepitant, made by Merck Research Laboratories, reduces the rate of vomiting during the first 48 hours after open abdominal surgery, according to a trial reported this week at the meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in Atlanta.

The drug is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and this study is the first to evaluate aprepitant's use for post-operative vomiting, Dr. Tong Joo Gan told Reuters Health.

Gan, from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues enrolled nearly 500 patients undergoing general anesthesia during open abdominal surgery requiring overnight hospitalization.

The patients were randomly assigned to take a 125-milligram or a 40-milligram aprepitant pill 1 hour prior to surgery, or were given an IV dose of another anti-nausea drug ondansetron at the beginning of surgery.

Ninety-five percent of patients in the 125-milligram aprepitant group and 90 percent in the 40-milligram group had no vomiting over 24 hours, compared with 74 percent in the ondansetron group. Corresponding rates of no vomiting by 48 hours were 93 percent, 85 percent and 67 percent.

"For this population that we studied, the typical rate of nausea and vomiting is 60 percent to 70 percent," Gan pointed out. "This is the first time in 10 years that a new class of drug is coming to market and it seems to work better at preventing vomiting than existing drugs."

Aprepitant has minimal side effects, he added, and is longer lasting than other currently used anti-vomiting drugs.