Antinausea Drug May Help Cancer Patients Survive Longer: Study

Washington: Patients with breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and certain other types of cancer can survive longer if they are given an anti-nausea drug during surgery, a new study says. The results of the study were presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY 2021 annual meeting. Three months after their cancer surgery, more than three times as many patients who did not receive dexamethasone died than those who received the drug. discovered the researchers. Dexamethasone is given to patients to prevent nausea and vomiting after surgery and during chemotherapy. Researchers have found that dexamethasone may improve mid- and long-term outcomes in patients with non-immunogenic cancers (those that do not elicit a strong immune response) such as sarcoma and cancers of the breast, uterus. , ovary, esophagus, pancreas, thyroid, bones and joints.

“Dexamethasone has positive and negative effects – it inhibits cancer growth but also suppresses the immune system,” said Maximilian Schaefer, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and director of the Center for Anesthesia Research Excellence, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

“Previous research has reported that in cancers in which the immune system controls cancer growth, the positive and negative effects of dexamethasone balance each other out, so there is no benefit. Our study is the first large study to be show that for a wide variety of cancers where the immune system does not play a major role, the positive effects seem to predominate, “Schaefer added.

Researchers analyzed the records of 74,058 patients who underwent surgeries to remove non-immunogenic cancerous tumors between 2005 and 2020 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and between 2007 and 2015 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Overall, 25,178 patients (34%) received dexamethasone during surgery. After 90 days, 209 (0.83%) of the patients who received dexamethasone died compared with 1,543 (3.2%) of the patients who did not receive the drug. After taking into account various factors, including the fact that dexamethasone is often given to younger patients, those who received the drug still had a 21% reduced risk of dying within a year of surgery. A second analysis determined that dexamethasone was particularly beneficial for patients with cancer of the ovary, uterus or cervix.

“Based on our data, anesthetists should feel more confident in administering dexamethasone to patients undergoing surgery for non-immunogenic cancers,” said Dr. Schaefer.

“It not only helps relieve nausea, but can also improve survival,” concluded Dr. Schaefer.