Sleep protects against chemotherapy induced emesis.

BACKGROUND We present a clinical trial to assess the hypothesis that chemotherapy related emesis is reduced when drugs delivered while the patient is sleeping. METHODS Adults without previous sleep disturbances of vomit inducing conditions who were going to receive their first courses of 100 mg/m2 cisplatin were included. We reduced antiemetic prophylaxis consisting of ondansetron and dexamethasone in subsequent groups of patients. RESULTS Twenty-one individuals were needed to decrease the antiemetic prophylaxis to zero. Significant vomiting was observed only when prophylaxis was abolished but not in previous steps employing negligible doses of prophylaxis. CONCLUSIONS Our data show that when cisplatin is administered during sleep, the reduction of antiemetic prophylaxis id not followed by the expected increase in emetic toxicity. This antiemetic property of sleep is, as far as we know, unassessed in a controlled way. Further study of the clinical utility of this method in the prevention of chemotherapy related emesis is indicated.