Olanzapine for Nausea and Vomiting

Nausea and vomiting are often encountered in palliative care patients. Multiple medications are available to provide relief. However, several drug combinations are usually used to treat emesis. Current research has identified several receptors that trigger nausea and vomiting, hence the difficulty of using only 1 medication to provide relief. Olanzapine is a drug approved for treatment of schizophrenia and mania. It blocks multiple neurotransmitters dopaminergic, serotonergic, adrenergic (alpha(1)), histaminergic, and muscarinic receptors. Most of these receptors are also involved in causing emesis. Studies have shown that olanzapine could be used to treat nausea and vomiting with promising results.