• Ruey Kuen Hsieh, Alexandre Chan, Hoon-Kyo Kim, Shiying Yu, Jong Gwang Kim, Myung-Ah Lee, Johan Dalén, Hun Jung, Yan Ping Liu, Thomas A Burke, and Dorothy M K Keefe.
• Cancer Center, Mackay Memorial Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan.
• Support Care Cancer. 2015 Jan 1; 23 (1): 263-72.

PurposeThis paper describes the incidence of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) after highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy (HEC or MEC) for cancer in six Asia Pacific countries.MethodsSequential adult patients naïve to chemotherapy and scheduled to receive at least two cycles of single-day HEC or MEC were enrolled in this prospective observational study. Patients completed the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) Antiemesis Tool on post-chemotherapy days 2 and 6 to record acute-phase (first 24 h) and delayed-phase (days 2-5) CINV.ResultsThere were 648 evaluable patients (318 HEC, 330 MEC) from Australia (n = 74), China (153), India (88), Singapore (57), South Korea (151), and Taiwan (125). Mean (SD) patient age was 56 (12) and 58% of patients were women; the most common primary cancers were breast (27%), lung (22%), and colon (20%). Overall in cycle 1, complete response (no emesis or rescue antiemetics) was recorded by 69% (95% confidence interval (CI), 66-73) of all evaluable patients, with country percentages ranging from 55 to 78% (p < 0.001). After HEC, no emesis was recorded by 75% and no nausea by 38% of patients. After MEC, 80% had no emesis and 50% no nausea. Acute-phase CINV was better controlled than delayed-phase CINV, and the control of nausea was the lowest of any CINV measure in all phases. In a CINV perception survey, physicians tended to overestimate emesis rate and underestimate nausea rate.ConclusionsCINV remains a substantial problem, and country-specific information about CINV can be useful in developing strategies to improve outcomes for patients undergoing chemotherapy.

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