Abstract
Hiccups commonly occur in patients undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer and may diminish their motivation for treatment. Therefore, it is important to characterize the hiccups and their risk factors. We examined the medical records of 120 patients with lung cancer during their initial chemotherapy and extracted data on the patients’ profiles and the onset, duration, and severity 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 chemotherapy and disappeared within 4 days. Hiccups hindered sleep in two patients. The characteristics of the hiccups episodes in our study were not different from those of previous studies. We also investigated distinctive features of the patients who developed hiccups. The occurrence of hiccups was associated 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 neurokinin-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.
Highlights
We examined the medical records of 120 patients with lung cancer during their initial chemotherapy and extracted data on the patients’ profiles and the onset, duration, and severity of their hiccup episodes
We suggest that a high incidence of hiccups may be anticipated with a prophylactic use of antiemetic agents, dexamethasone and neurokinin-1 receptor antagonists
Of a total of 120 Japanese patients admitted for receiving their first chemotherapy cycle for lung cancer, none was excluded based on the exclusion criteria
Summary
Some pharmacological agents are known to be risk factors for hiccups [4]. In patients with lung cancer, hiccups can be associated with the anticancer drug cisplatin [5] as well as with the antiemetic agent dexamethasone [5] [6] and neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist [7]. Hiccups will rarely put a patient’s life at risk, they appear to negatively impact patient’s daily activities and their motivation for chemotherapy. Understanding hiccups is important to identify the associated factors during cancer treatment. Few studies of antiemetics agents have been conducted on the associations among risk factors. We examined the characteristics of hiccups and associated risk factors during the first chemotherapy cycle in patients with lung cancer
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