A cross-sectional study on the guideline adherence to antiemetic regimens for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: A single center retrospective study of 1000 patients.

Abstract Background Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) is a common symptom in patients who undergoing chemotherapy, it is very important to control CINV to maintain dose intensity and patients' quality of life. To analyze the current situation of CINV for the tumor patients who undergoing chemotherapy, we used a cross-sectional survey to assess CINV status in those patients, and whether the drugs used by doctors in each department met the guidelines, and compared the incidence of acute and delayed CINV overall post-chemotherapy periods. Methods This was a single-center, cross-sectional retrospective study of patients with chemotherapy discharged from different departments of Zhejiang Cancer Hospital in China. Participants reported the occurrence, severity, and impact on daily life of nausea and vomiting from the day of chemotherapy administration up to 5 days, and physicians collected the clinical data from the medical records. Results Data were collected from 875 responses totally. In this study, the overall incidence rate of CINV was 44.34%, acute CINV was 24.57%, and delayed CINV was 39.66%. 19.89% patients had both acute and delayed CINV. The consistency rates of antiemetic with guideline in different departments showed significant gap between the actual usage of drugs and the recommended guidelines (P=0.001). In 875 patients, 518 patients received guideline recommended antiemetic regimen, the CINV rates of complete control (CC), defined as the absence of any symptoms, were 61.58%. While the CC rates in other 357 patients were 47.06%(P<0.001). Conclusion Overall, clinician adherence to antiemetic guideline recommendations in different departments remained poorly characterized with varying degrees. Future studies should focus on the complete rate as a primary end point rather than complete remission. The standardized management of CINV in patients need to be further strengthened and doctors need to use drugs more regularly to reduce the occurrence of CINV in patients.