Nanomedicines in the treatment of emesis during chemotherapy: focus on aprepitant

Ian Olver¹, Suhas Shelukar², Karen C Thompson²

¹The Cancer Council Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2001; ²Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, Pennsylvania, USA

Abstract: Aprepitant, a selective high-affinity antagonist of human substance P/neurokinin 1 (NK₁) receptors, is the active ingredient of EMEND^® which has recently been approved by the FDA for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). Aprepitant undergoes extensive metabolism, primarily via CYP3A4 mediated oxidation. It is eliminated primarily by metabolism and is not renally excreted. The apparent terminal half-life in humans ranged from 9 to 13 hours. Early development studies led to the development of a nanoparticle formulation to enhance exposure and minimize food effects. Two large randomized trials accruing 1099 patients studied the effect in patients receiving cisplatin of adding aprepitant to ondansetron and dexamethasone on day 1 then to dexamethasone on days 2 and 3 to control delayed emesis. The complete response of no vomiting and no rescue medication overall from days 1 to 5 improved from 48% to 68% (p<0.001), a 13% improvement in acute emesis but a 21% improvement in delayed emesis with the improvement from 51% to 72% (p<0.001). Similarly, 866 patients treated with cyclophosphamide plus either doxorubicin or epirubicin, received either ondansetron, dexamethasone, and aprepitant on day 1 followed by aprepitant on days 2 and 3 or ondansetron and dexamethasone on day 1 and dexamethasone on days 2 and 3. The overall complete response rate over 5 days was better for the aprepitant group 50.8% vs 42.5% (p=0.015). Complete responses were reported in more patients taking aprepitant in both the acute (76% vs 69%, p=0.034) and delayed (55% vs 49%, p=0.064) phases of vomiting. There were no clinically relevant differences in toxicity by adding aprepitant and improvements in the quality of life of patients on chemotherapy were recorded.

Keywords: antiemetic, delayed emesis, aprepitant, nanoparticle