Effect of Antiemetic Agents on Hiccups during Chemotherapy in Patients with Lung Cancer

Abstract

Hiccups commonly occur in patients undergoing chemotherapy for lung can-cer and may diminish their motivation for treatment. Therefore, it is impor-tant to characterize the hiccups and their risk factors. We examined the med-ical records of 120 patients with lung cancer during their initial chemotherapy and extracted data on the patients' profiles and the onset, duration, and sever-ity of their hiccup episodes. We found the incidence of hiccups to be 19.2% among the patients. Hiccups appeared within 3 days of beginning the chemo-therapy and disappeared within 4 days. Hiccups hindered sleep in two pa-tients. The characteristics of the hiccups episodes in our study were not dif-ferent from those of previous studies. We also investigated distinctive features of the patients who developed hiccups. The occurrence of hiccups was asso-ciated with gender, age, and the treatment with platinum agents. Antiemetic agents, dexamethasone and neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists, also showed significant effects on hiccup episodes. Although the dose-responsive effect of dexamethasone on hiccups was insignificant and the effects of two neuroki-nin-1 receptor antagonists, aprepitant and fosaprepitant, on hiccups appeared identical. From these results, we suggest that a high incidence of hiccups may be anticipated with a prophylactic use of antiemetic agents, dexamethasone and neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists.