Approximately 100 million surgeries are performed worldwide and over 40 million patients undergo surgery in the United States every year15. The likelihood of developing PONV increases from approximately 10% with no risk factors to as high as 80% with a combination of certain risk factors such as history of motion sickness or PONV, female gender, nonsmoker or postoperative opioid use15. Both POI and PONV are related and experts from a meeting on the international consensus of the definition suggested that these two entities were the same16. However, others said that POI was part of PONV or vice-versa16. PONV and Post Discharge Nausea and Vomiting (PDNV) remain areas of significant unmet need. Several agents are needed to manage PONV, however current therapies are less than optimal and do not adequately address the underlying causes of PONV such as ileus and/or nausea. Thus, astressins offer an alternative means to treat PONV by a non-oral mode of administration with long-acting effects1.
1 Erchegyi et. al., (2016) J. Med. Chem., 59, 854-866
15 Smith et. al., (2012) Ann. Palliat. Med., 1, 94-102
16 Gero et. al., (2016) Langenbecks Arch. Surg., DOI 10.1007/s00423-016-1485-1