[A pilot study: gastric motility and nausea/vomiting in two leukemia children receiving chemotherapy]

The purpose of the study was to identify the association between chemotherapy-induced nausea/vomiting and changes to the electrogastrogram (EGG) of two children suffering from leukemia. After receiving written consent/assent, the children, both with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), were recruited. One of the subjects, a ten year-old boy, was given 1.1 gm Cytarabine (intravenous infusion for six hours per day) for three days and Tropisetron 5 mg intravenous infusion for 24 hours. The other subject, an eight year-old girl, received the induction phase of TPOG 93HR chemotherapy, which included Epirubicin, Vincristin, L-asparaginase, and Prednisolone and Tropisetron 5 mg on Day 1. The EGG recordings of both patients were recorded for a total of 42 hours by cutaneous electrogastrography over a seven day period. This included two-hour and four-hour readings taken before and immediately following the administration of chemotherapy each day. The position, movements, and activities of the children while on the EGG were recorded on digital video. Four episodes of nausea and vomiting were detected during this period. Pre- and post-nausea and vomiting during the EGG were analyzed using spectrum analysis after the deletion of motion artifacts. The findings of this study indicated that two episodes of nausea were 5.3-10.3% bradygastria and 2.1-10.3% tachygastria, with 85.8% and 100% normal gastric slow waves detected by EGG during the pre-vomiting period. Tachygastria was present in 3.4% and 12.2% of the post-vomiting period of each episode. The association of artifacts with position, movement, and activities must be considered during data collection.