Scopolamine for cancer-related nausea and vomiting

Abstract

Nausea and vomiting is a common and troublesome symptom in advanced cancer. There have been different approaches described for the management of nausea and vomiting, specifically empirical and etiological. Scopolamine is listed in textbooks as a useful medication in management of nausea and vomiting in this setting, although there is no published data to support this recommendation. We present three cases that support the use of scopolamine in an etiologically based approach for management of nausea in advanced cancer.