Amelie Harle on Aprepitant's Effectiveness in Treating Cough in Lung Cancer

Amelie Harle, an oncologist at Christie Hospital in Manchester, United Kingdom, discusses the possibility of using aprepitant (Emend) to treat cough in patients with lung cancer.

Harle said that there are few, if any, evidence-based treatments to treat cough for these patients, so she did a study involving 20 people with lung cancer. She noticed that aprepitant did, in fact, reduce cough frequency because it targets the NK-1 pathway, which, in animal studies, was proven to effect cough.

Since her study was small, Harle said that the next step would be a larger and longer study, with two groups of patients: one receiving aprepitant, and the other receiving a placebo to see the true effectiveness of the drug.