Does increasing the steroid dose enhance the efficacy of the antiemetic combination of granisetron and methylprednisolone in gynecologic cancer patients--a randomized study

Abstract

Objective: The authors administered two doses of oral methylprednisolone in combination with 3mg granisetron intravenously for the prophylaxis of cisplatin-induced emesis in gynecologic cancer patients.

Materials and methods: Thirty-nine patients received 100mg (group A) and 25 received 200mg (group B) methylprednisolone in the antiemetic combination in a randomized prospective trial.

Results: No vomiting in 90.2 and 96.7%, one emetic episode in 3 and 1.1% and two episodes in 3 and 2.2% were detected in groups A and B, respectively. More than two emetic episodes were considered to be a failure and were observed only in group A (3.8%). There was no significant difference between the two treatment groups (P=0.3160).

Conclusions: There was no evidence for enhanced antiemetic effect of elevated steroidal dose in combination with granisetron.