Nausea, Vomiting and Cancer Treatment

a spectrum of symptoms and signs whose net result is a reduction of food intake. This is an undesirable state of affairs, particularly in cancer patients who suffer both a decreased ability to withstand treatment and an impaired quality of life. The nature of the largely subjective phenomena of anorexia and nausea is ob scure; in cancer patients they usually reflect complications of the disease or of its treatment, but may well be a feature of advanced cancer per se.' With advanced cancer, anorexia is probably multifacto rial, with contributions from abnormali ties of taste and smell, disorders of the central hunger-satiety mechanisms and, possibly, production by the tumor of intermediate metabolites that affect cen tral and peripheral mediators of hunger and satiety (the so-called “¿ anorexigenic metabolite hypothesis―).2 Nausea and vomiting, frequent and distressing side effects of cancer treatment, are an increasing problem as a result of more aggressive therapeutic modalities.