NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nausea and vomiting occurring the week after cancer chemotherapy is common, despite the use of so-called "anti-emetics" to control nausea and vomiting, and can adversely affect quality of life. And nausea appears to have a greater negative impact than vomiting does.

While it may seem "self-evident" that nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy have a negative effect on life, few studies have actually quantified this adverse effect of treatment, doctors explain in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

In nearly 300 cancer patients, Dr. Brigitte Bloechl-Daum from the Medical University of Vienna, and colleagues analyzed the prevalence and impact of acute nausea and vomiting occurring in the first 24 hours after chemotherapy and delayed nausea and vomiting occurring 2 to 5 days post-chemotherapy.

Most patients received anti-emetic treatments prior to chemotherapy, as is recommended. Despite this, however, vomiting was reported by more than one third of patients (36.4 percent). In roughly 13 percent, vomiting occurred in the first 24 hours after treatment, whereas 32 percent suffered delayed vomiting.

Nausea plagued close to 60 percent of study patients and was much more bothersome to patients than vomiting. Nausea was immediate in 36 percent and delayed in 54 percent.

"Nearly one in two patients suffered an impact on daily life, primarily from nausea, even though they received only moderately (vomit-causing) regimens," note the authors.

The rate of delayed nausea was "unexpectedly similar" after highly and moderately emetogenic chemotherapy (60 percent versus 52 percent, respectively.

Of the 173 patients who did not suffer nausea or vomiting in the first 24 hours after chemotherapy, 23 percent said delayed nausea and vomiting affected their quality of life.

This research, the authors conclude, highlights the burden of nausea and vomiting that cancer patients suffer and the need for new and more potent anti-emetics.