Chemotherapy Induced Nausea and Vomiting on Quality of Life among Cancer Patients : A Review

Introduction and Background Chemotherapy is considered the first drug of choice of physicians to treat cancer patients; between 500,000 and 1 million Americans receive chemotherapy each year. Nausea and vomiting affects 70 to 80 percent of people who receive chemotherapy and can result in significant morbidity ( Rudolph. Navari, 2007 ). First of all the classification of nausea and vomiting in patients receiving chemotherapy could be acute: i.e. occurring within 24 hours of chemotherapy; delayed, occurring between 24 hours and 5 days after treatment; breakthrough, occurring despite prophylactic treatment; anticipatory, occurring before chemotherapy treatment; and refractory, occurring during subsequent cycles when antiemetics have failed in earlier cycles; this effect varies from one patient to another according to chemotherapy type, doses, route and patient experience.