Ondansetron clinical studies

Clinical studies in cancer patients have also shown ondansetron to be a highly effective antiemetic drug and to be significantly more effective than metoclopramide [44-46]. As expected, there are no reports of extrapyrami-dal side-effects in patients receiving ondansetron. 

Ondansetron is the first 5-HT3-receptor antagonist to be used for the treatment of nausea and vomiting induced by cancer therapy. Its high receptor selectivity is reflected in clinical studies which show ondansetron to be a very effective antiemetic drug with few side-effects. 

Ondansetron has also been investigated for the treatment of fatigue associated with primary biliary cirrhosis but results have been disappointing. A randomised, controlled crossover trial (n = 54) examined the effect of ondansetron 4 mg three times a day versus placebo for a four-week period, before being crossed over for a further four-week period. The study concluded that the use of ondansetron did not offer a clinically significant reduction in fatigue compared to placebo [20]. However, the results of the study may have been affected as patients were effectively unblinded during the second phase of the... 

A clinical trial onyoung healthy individuals was conducted with ondansetron (144) to measure its effects on scopolamine-induced cognitive, behavioral, and physiological responses (468). This study found that a single dose of ondansetron only minimally attenu-... 

Even before the identification of central 5-HTg receptors, 5-HTg receptor antagonists have been suggested to possess striking properties. To date, based on animal studies, several reports have shown that these drugs display anxiolytic, antipsychotic [see 3,4, 5,166,167], promnesic [72,169,170], antidepressant [136], antinociceptive [23, 171] and antiemetic [172, 173] properties, generally at low doses and without side-effects [4]. Confirmation of these results in human are necessary before drawing any definitive conclusion since, except for the antiemetic effects, data from clinical trials are few and generally limited to ondansetron. Critical reviews on the subject have recently been published [9, 235-238]. 

The small doses of apomorphine used for erectile dysfunction (2 to 3 mg) do not normally cause vomiting, but nausea does occur in about 7% of patients and the manufacturers say that interaction studies and/or clinical experience show that domperidone, ondansetron or prochlorperazine may safely be given as antiemetics in this patient group. Studies with other antiemetics have not been carried out, so at the moment concurrent use is not recommended. ... 

Charbit B, Alvarez JC, Dasque E, Abe E, Ddmolis JL, Funck-Brentano C. Droperi-dol and ondansetron-induced QT interval prolongation a clinical drug interaction study. Anesthesiology 2008 109 206-12. 

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