Nausea and vomiting remains a common and difficult to manage consequence of chemotherapy despite prophylaxis. These symptoms can often lead to a decreased quality of life, dehydration, and malnutrition. Olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic that blocks multiple neuronal receptors involved in nausea/vomiting pathways. Olanzapine has been studied for breakthrough chemo-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) as well as in prophylaxis of highly and moderately emetogenic regimens (HEC and MEC, respectively). However, these studies have focused on patients with solid tumor malignancies and chemotherapy regimens of short duration. To date, no publications have reported outcomes from adding olanzapine to standard triplet therapy, for hematology patients, including those undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplants and those who receive multi-day HEC and MEC regimens.~This is a blinded, placebo controlled trial randomizing patients to receive olanzapine 10 mg orally on all chemotherapy days plus three additional days post chemotherapy or placebo in addition to standard triplet therapy (ondansetron and dexamethasone on each day of chemotherapy and fosaprepitant 150 mg IV on day one of chemotherapy). Inclusion criteria: age 18 or older, receiving inpatient or outpatient HEC or MEC chemotherapy including those regimens given before stem cell transplantation (ABVD, ICE ± R, 7+3 or 5+2, BEAM, Bu/Cy ± ATG, Bu/Flu ± ATG, FluCy ± ATG, BuMel, FluBuCy, Melphalan). Exclusion criteria: allergy to olanzapine, documented nausea/vomiting ≤24 hours before enrollment, treatment with other antipsychotic agents, or declined informed consent. Patients will be randomized to placebo or olanzapine in a block design stratified by chemotherapy type (transplant conditioning vs. chemotherapy only) and number of days of chemotherapy (single vs. multi-day) by the Investigational Drug Pharmacy services at Augusta University Medical Center.
The objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness of olanzapine added to standard triplet therapy (fosaprepitant, ondansetron, and dexamethasone) versus triplet therapy alone in preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in hematology patients receiving highly or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy regimens.