Nausea and Vomiting Caused by Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy can cause nausea and vomiting. Some other drugs, such as targeted therapy and immunotherapy can cause nausea and vomiting too. There many different kinds of each type of treatment. Some can make you have nausea and/or vomiting while others might not. Sometimes the type of cancer you have can make you have nausea and vomiting too.
How likely you are to have nausea and vomiting while getting treatment depends on many things. Some of these are:
- The types of treatment used. Drugs that travel through the body are more likely to cause nausea and vomiting than treatment that only affects one area of the body, such as radiation therapy. And, some drugs are more likely than others to cause nausea and vomiting
- The dose of the drugs (higher doses can be more likely to cause nausea and vomiting, especially certain chemo drugs)
- When and how often the drug is given. For example, if doses of a chemo drug that causes nausea and vomiting are given close together, there’s less time for the person to recover from the effects of the last dose before the next one is given.
- How the drugs are given. For instance, chemo given through a vein (intravenous, or by IV) may cause nausea and vomiting much faster than a drug given by mouth. This is because the drug given by IV is absorbed faster.
- Individual differences – not every person will have the same response to a dose or type of treatment.
- Having a tumor in the brain, liver, or gastrointestinal tract may increase the risk for nausea and vomiting.
- Other drugs (such as pain medicines) that may cause or worsen nausea and/or vomiting.
Some personal risk factors that may make you more likely to have nausea and vomiting include:
- Being female
- Being younger
- Having had morning sickness during pregnancy
- Being very anxious or nervous
- Having ever had motion sickness
- Being prone to vomiting when you are sick
- Having been a non-drinker or light drinker (of alcohol)
- Having had chemo in the past
There’s no way to know for sure if you will have nausea and vomiting, but your doctor will consider these things when choosing anti-nausea and vomiting medicines to use with your cancer treatment.
Nausea and vomiting due to chemo and other drugs that treat cancer
You may hear treatment-related nausea and vomiting also referred to as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). If you're getting a drug to treat cancer, be sure to talk to your cancer care team about what kind of drug it is and how likely it is to cause nausea and vomiting.
There are different types of nausea and vomiting, depending on when they happen.
Acute nausea and vomiting usually happens within minutes to hours after treatment is given, and usually within the first 24 hours. This is more common when treatment is given by IV infusion or when taken by mouth.
Delayed nausea and vomiting usually starts more than 24 hours after treatment and can last up to a few days after treatment ends. It’s more likely with certain types of chemo or other drug to treat cancer. Ask your doctor if the treatment you’re getting is known to cause delayed nausea and vomiting.
Anticipatory nausea and vomiting is a learned or conditioned response. It appears to be the result of previous experiences with treatment that led to nausea and vomiting, in which the brain pairs some parts of the treatment such as the sights, sounds, and smells of the treatment area with vomiting. Anticipatory nausea and/or vomiting can happen before or during treatment is given.
Breakthrough nausea and vomiting happens even though treatment has been given to try to prevent it. When this happens, you may need more or different medicines to help prevent further nausea and vomiting.
Refractory vomiting is when you’re getting medicines to prevent or control nausea and vomiting, but the drugs are not working. Your nausea and vomiting have become refractory (no longer respond) to the medicines you’re getting to prevent it. This means you may need more or different medicines to stop the nausea and/or vomiting. Refractory vomiting may happen after a few or even after several chemo treatments.
Nausea and vomiting due to radiation therapy
Nausea and vomiting can be caused by radiation therapy based on:
The part of the body being treated. The risk is greatest when the brain is treated, or the area of the body being treated includes a large part of the upper abdomen (belly) – mainly the small intestine (or small bowel) and/or the liver.
Total body irradiation (used in stem cell transplants) is linked to a high risk of nausea and vomiting if treatment is not given to prevent it. Patients may also get high doses of chemo to prepare for transplant, which further raises the chance of nausea and vomiting.
The dose of radiation given. The bigger the dose of radiation given, the higher the risk for nausea and vomiting.
How often the treatment is given. People who get one large dose of radiation have a greater chance of nausea and vomiting than those who get radiation that is spread out over smaller doses.
If chemotherapy or another drug to treat cancer is given along with the radiation. When radiation is given along with chemo, the anti-emetic treatment used is based on the nausea and vomiting risk of the chemo drugs given.
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The American Cancer Society medical and editorial content team
Our team is made up of doctors and oncology certified nurses with deep knowledge of cancer care as well as journalists, editors, and translators with extensive experience in medical writing.
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Last Revised: September 10, 2020
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