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 19o Cancer patients who receive chemotherapy go through
 an almost Pavlovian cycle of response. If they vomit after
 their first chemotherapy sessions they become more apprehensive
 about the second treatment. During the second treatment the
 vomiting is likely to start sooner and be more severeŽ The
 patient becomes more and more terrified of the therapy and this
 sense of terror, and lack of controls serves to intensify the
 adverse reaction. In a short period of timew patients become
 so conditioned they may actually begin to vomit on the way to
 the hospital for their therapy_
 20. Unfortunately, there are very few effective anti-
 emetic drugs available to these patients. Compazine, the stan-
 dard anti-emetic in use during the late 1970's and early
 1980's, seldom affords patients with any reliable relief from
 the nausea and vomiting caused by the use of chemotherapeutic
 agents. Some estimates suggest fewer than twenty percent of
 vomiting patients find Compazine helpful_
 21. In 1976, while a Georgetown Fellow in Medical
 Oncology, _ was seeking to find ways to improve the quality of
 patient care within a supportive environment. As part of my
 review of materials, I investigated the role of nutrition and
 diet, evaluated the possibility of using hypnosis, and explored
 the use of other drugs which might help to stem the
 debilitating nausea and vomiting these cancer patients
 experienced.
 22. My. objective was to break the cycle of vomiting by
 preventing or reducing the amount of vomiting, the number of
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