Patients
This study was approved by the local Institutional Review Board, and all patients provided written informed consent before the start of study procedures. A randomized, clinical trial (chiCTR1800018424) was conducted to compare the effectiveness of 5 mg olanzapine plus triplet therapy (aprepitant, tropisetron, dexamethasone) (Quadruple group ) versus 5 mg olanzapine-based triplet therapy(Triplet group) in preventing CINV in patients receiving multiple-day cisplatin chemotherapy.
End points
We chose the CR rate, defined as the absence of emetic episodes and no use of rescue medications during the overall phase after the initiation of cisplatin, as the primary end-point. Secondary end-points are the CR rate in the acute phase and the delayed phase . The total control(TC) rate is defined as the absence of nausea and emetic episodes and no use of rescue medications for the acute, delayed, and overall phase. We used a 100mm categorical scale to stratify nausea and chose ≤5mm to define the total control. The time of treatment failure is defined as the time of first emetic episode or the use of rescue medication. AEs were graded according to Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) V.4.0.
Randomization
After confirming that the patients fulfills the eligibility criteria, the patients are randomized by random digits table.
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
(1) Patients older than 18 years who will receive 3-day cisplatin-based chemotherapy (25 mg/m2/d) enrolled in the study. All patients had histologically confirmed, (2) Karnofsky Performance Scale≥70, (3) There is no abnormality in liver and kidney function, blood routine and electrocardiogram before chemotherapy, including: White Blood Cell Couct >3.5×10^9/L, Absolute neutrophil count >1.5×10^9/L, Platelet count >85×10^9/L, Alkaline phosphatase<2.5 upper limit of normal (ULN), alanine transaminase <2.5 upper limit of normal (ULN), Bilirubin <1.5 ULN, Creatinine <1.5 ULN, (4) Patients without chemotherapy contraindications after CT and MRI examination, (5) No episodes of nausea and vomiting occurred during last 1 week before enrollment, and no aprepitant or olanzapine was used for pretreatment, (6) Patients are able to understand and describe patient-reported outcomes.
Exclusion criteria
Patients were excluded if they meet any of the following criterias: (1)Symptomatic brain metastases, (2) Requiring treatment for ascites or pleural effusion, (3) Requiring radiotherapy in the abdominal or pelvic field, (4) Requiring anticonvulsant medication, (5)History of hypersensitivity or allergy to the study drugs or similarcompounds, (6) Severe complications (pulmonary fibrosis, heart failure, myocardialinfarction, unstable angina, cerebral vascular disorder, psychiatricdisease, renal dysfunction, liver dysfunction, intestinalparesis, ileus, uncontrol lable diabetes mellitus, active peptic ulceretc), (7)History of using any of the following drugs within 48h, opioids, aprepitant, 5-HT3 receptor antagonists, dexamethasone, dopamine receptor antagonists, antihistamines, benzodiazepines and phenothiazine antipsychotics, (8)Pregnant or lactating women or women with child bearing potential, or men wishing to be the father of children, (9) Partial/complete bowel obstruction, (10) Malignant tumor of digestive tract,
Treatments
The study antiemetic administrations are shown in Table 1. Patients in quadruple antiemetic regimen group received: Aprepitant 125 mg po day 1, 80mg po days 2-3(EMEND, MSD Sharp & Dohme, Haar, Germany), Olanzapine 5mg po days 1-3, tropisetron 5mg iv days 1-3 (Beijing Shuanglu Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., China), dexamethasone 5mg iv days 1-3. Patients in triple antiemetic regimen group received: Olanzapine 5mg po days 1-3 , tropisetron 5mg iv days 1-3 , dexamethasone 10mg iv days 1-3. The aprepitant group had a half dosage of dexamethasone besides tropisetron hydrochloride and aprepitant, since the function of CYP3A4 in DXM pharmacokinetics could be exhibited by aprepitant[10].
Table 1 Antiemetic administrations
|
Day1
|
Day2
|
Day3
|
Quadruple antiemetic regimen
|
Aprepitant 125mg po
|
Aprepitant 80mg po
|
Aprepitant 80mg po
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Dexamethasone
5mg po
|
Dexamethasone
5mg po
|
Dexamethasone
5mg po
|
Triple antiemetic regimen
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Olanzapine 5mg po
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Tropisetron 5mg iv
|
Dexamethasone
10mg po
|
Dexamethasone
10mg po
|
Dexamethasone
10mg po
|
Follow-up
Patients recorded and self-reported the times and dates of vomiting or retching episodes, and the use of rescue therapy from time of chemotherapy infusion(0 h) until day 5. Patients were contacted in the mornings of days 2-5 to ensure compliance with nausea categorical scale. Functional Living Index-Emesis(FLIE) questionnaire scoring was self-administered early on the day5, directly following completion of final self-reports[11]. Notably, FLIE is a validated emesis- and nausea-specific questionnaire with nine nausea domain questions(items) and nine vomiting domain questions(items) and“no impact of CINV on daily life”represented means scores >6 on a 7-point scale(>108 in total)[12,13].
All patients underwent post-treatment examination on days 6-8 and follow-up at days 19-21, and AEs related to aprepitant and olanzapine were recorded.
Statistical analysis
The sponsor managed the data and performed the analyses for this study. The hypothesis of this study was that the CR rate of 5 mg olanzapine in quadruple group would be significantly higher than that of 5 mg olanzapine-based triplet group. Other trials have shown that the CR rate of triple antiemetic therapy was about 65%[14,15]. According to the previous studies, CR rates of antiemesis treatment by olanzapine combined aprepitant, tropisetron and dexamethasone were 86%[14]. We believed that an improvement of more than 15% in the CR rate would be clinically meaningful. Therefore, assuming that the null hypothesis of the CR rate is 65% and the alternative hypothesis is 80%, we calculated that a minimum of 82 patients were required to achieve a one-sided type I error of 0.1% and 80% of power, based on the exact binomial distribution. Because some dropouts were expected, we set the target sample size to 104, and the sample size calculation was performed by SASV.9.4 (Cary, NC, USA).
Treatment comparisons were made using logistic regression models that included terms for treatment, gender, age, alcohol use, history of motion sickness etc. All comparisons used a two-sided significance level of 5%. Tests of siginificance were based on the logistic regression models, and the norminal P values were reported. Kaplan-Meier curves of time to first emesis were constructed to both groups. Fisher's exact test was used to compare the percentage of patients who got CR or experienced aprepitant-related AEs between the two groups.