[Ondansetron in the prophylaxis of acute emesis induced by supra-high single dose total body irradiation (TBI)].

One hundred sixteen cases of leukemia patients received supra-high single dose TBI for bone marrow transplantation (BMT) with total a radiation dosage of 700-770 Gy at about 5cGy/min. Seventy patients were given ondanstron (8mg) plus dexamethasone (DXM, 10mg) for prophylaxis of TBI-induced acute nausea and vomiting, 46 patients were given paspertin (10mg) plus dexamethasone (10mg) as controls. The clinical results showed that ondansetron plus DXM achieved complete or major control of vomiting in 59/70 (84%) of cases and there was little or no nausea in 61/70 (87%), while paspertin plus DXM achieved complete or major control of vomiting only in 9/46 (20%) of cases and little or no nausea in 5/46 (11%). It is concluded that ondansetron has significantly greater advantage over paspertin in the control of acute emesis induced by TBI.