Prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and the role of neurokinin 1 inhibitors: from guidelines to clinical practice in solid tumors

A significant proportion of cancer patients experience nausea or vomiting during the course of their disease, either because of the cancer itself or because of the treatment received. Highly or moderately emetogenic drugs are part of the standard chemotherapy regimens frequently used in patients with lung cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and several other common solid tumors. In this review, we describe the impact of nausea and vomiting in patients receiving chemotherapy, and the main progress achieved in the prophylaxis of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting with the introduction of neurokinin 1 inhibitors. The adherence to existing guidelines is particularly important to avoid suboptimal prophylaxis and maximize patients' outcome. This review is focused on lung, breast, ovarian, and colorectal cancer, which are among the solid tumors characterized by a numeric and clinical relevance of the chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting issue because of the wide use of highly and/or moderately emetogenic chemotherapy regimens