Aprepitant, fosaprepitant and risk of ifosfamide-induced neurotoxicity: a systematic review

Ifosfamide is one of the chemotherapy regimens which potentially causes neurotoxicity in patients up to 30%. Aprepitant is administered as an anti-emetic agent in chemotherapy and regarding the inhibitory effect on CYP3A4, aprepitant can increase the risk of ifosfamide adverse effects. This study aims to systematically investigate the relation of ifosfamide-induced neurotoxicity and aprepitant or fosaprepitant in chemotherapy cancer patients. Four databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase were systematically reviewed without language restriction and hand searching was performed until December 2021. Total 1639 publications were retrieved and nine studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria. For quality assessment, we used Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scales (NOS) for retrospective cohort studies and Cochrane Collaboration tool to assess the risk of bias for a randomized controlled trial. Overall, the results of our systematic review indicated a positive enhanced trend between neurotoxicity and concomitant use of ifosfamide and aprepitant or fosaprepitant, but the association was not statistically significant. As indicated by our findings, several studies identified low albumin as a risk factor for ifosfamide-induced encephalopathy. However, further clinical studies with a larger population of patients are required to evaluate the clinical significance of ifosfamide-related neurotoxicity and aprepitant or fosaprepitant.