Tesaro, Inc., manufacturers of the drug rolapitant, is currently in promising late-stage trials for the drug, reports Global Post.  The experimental drug is intended to treat nausea and vomiting brought on by chemotherapy.  In two late-stage clinical trials, the drug was found effective for these indications. Tesaro is currently preparing a marketing approval application to be submitted mid-2014.  In the meantime, it will continue its clinical trials to bolster its evidence on effectiveness and efficacy.  A third late-stage trial is planned and Tesaro is enrolling participants.

The clinical trials tested the drug in cancer patients that were currently undergoing chemotherapy, which can induce vomiting or nausea.  Participants in the experimental study were given a combination of two drugs that are already available to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy or were given that two-drug combination in addition to rolapitant.  In these designs, the combination involving rolapitant was effective in reducing nausea and vomiting.

According to the Mayo Clinic, chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in the body. Chemotherapy is most often used to treat cancer, since cancer cells grow and multiply much more quickly than most cells in the body.  Chemotherapy is used in cancer treatment to kill cancer cells as its own treatment, as a second step after another treatment to kill hidden cancer cells, to prepare for other treatments such as surgery, and to ease signs and symptoms of cancer.  In addition to cancer treatment, chemotherapy may also be used to treat bone marrow and immune system disorders.

Side effects of chemotherapy drugs can be significant. Each drug has different side effects and people may respond differently.  Common side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hair loss, loss of appetite, fatigue, mouth sores, fever, pain, constipation, and easy bruising.  In addition to these short-term side effects, there are also long-term consequences from chemotherapy.  These include damage to lung tissue, nerve damage, heart problems, infertility, and risk of a second cancer.

The World Health Organization (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) recently released the latest statistics on the global burden of cancer and predictions of cancer trends.  Based on data on 28 types of cancer in 184 countries, collecting and publishing the data in the GLOBOCAN database, IARC found that there were 12.7 million new cancer cases and 7.6 million cancer-related deaths around the world in 2008.  In 2012, those numbers raised to 14.1 million new cases and 8.2 million deaths.