Palonosetron

Palonosetron (INN, trade name Aloxi) is a 5-HT3 antagonist used in the prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). It is the most effective of the 5-HT3 antagonists in controlling delayed CINV—nausea and vomiting that appear more than 24 hours after the first dose of a course of chemotherapy—and is the only drug of its class approved for this use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. , it is the most recent 5-HT3 antagonist to enter clinical use.

Palonosetron is administered intravenously, as a single dose, 30 minutes before chemotherapy, or as a single oral capsule one hour before chemotherapy. The oral formulation was approved on August 22, 2008 for prevention of acute CINV alone, as a large clinical trial did not show oral administration to be as effective as intravenous use against delayed CINV.