Nausea and Vomiting: Diagnosis and Treatment

227 Pages·2017·6.33 MB·English

by  Kenneth L. Koch

Kenneth L. Koch
William L. Hasler Editors
Nausea
and Vomiting
Diagnosis and Treatment
123
Nausea and Vomiting
Kenneth L. Koch • William L. Hasler
Editors
Nausea and Vomiting
Diagnosis and Treatment
Editors
Kenneth L. Koch William L. Hasler
Section on Gastroenterology Division of Gastroenterology
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center University of Michigan Health System
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-34074-6 ISBN 978-3-319-34076-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-34076-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957296
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
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This book is dedicated to my wife Elizabeth who has supported
my work day in and day out for many years and for my patients
with chronic nausea and vomiting who have encouraged me to
continue to try to help them.
Kenneth L. Koch, MD
I dedicate this book to my wife Michelle, also an academic
gastroenterologist, who supports and challenges me to be a
better doctor, investigator, husband, and father to our three
children.
William L. Hasler, MD
Foreword
It is particularly appropriate to begin a book devoted to the diagnosis and
treatment of nausea and vomiting with a “Foreword” as the word derives for
the fore (bow or prow) part of ship which is possibly the worst place to be for
the induction of seasickness.
Although nausea and vomiting are very common symptoms of diverse
disorders, they tend to be relatively neglected in contrast to pain; vomiting
may be dramatic and demand immediate attention, but nausea is often insidi-
ous in onset with little external manifestation in contrast to acute onset
abdominal or chest pain. In contrast to pain, nausea and vomiting may be also
be considered to be of lesser clinical significance and the impact on patient
quality of life may be underestimated. The clinical significance of nausea and
vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy (CINV), anaesthesia and sur-
gery (post-operative nausea and vomiting, PONV) and pregnancy (first tri-
mester and hyperemesis gravidarum) are well recognised and have had entire
books dedicated to them so are omitted from this volume. The focus of this
book is the relatively neglected (but often common) clinical conditions where
nausea and vomiting are prominent symptoms.
This book has a primarily clinical diagnostic and treatment focus that is
reflected by the editors who are both eminent researchers in nausea and vom-
iting. The range of health care professions represented by the authors empha-
sised the multi-system nature of nausea and vomiting and the multi-profession
approach to diagnosis and treatment. Health care professionals and patients
are the primary audience with this book aiming to be of practical help. The
wealth of illustrations and particularly the diagrams illustrating normal and
disordered gastric emptying are particularly helpful in understanding what is
happening in the abdomen when a patient reports nausea.
Despite the clinical focus, this book should be consulted by those more
interested in basic mechanisms as the detailed descriptions of a wide range of
clinical problems challenge researchers to provide credible mechanistic
explanations; for example, the question of “where is nausea perceived” is
fundamental to understanding the significance of nausea as a symptom
reported by patients, but convincing mechanistic explanations for the diver-
sity of reporting are lacking. The question of whether there is more than one
type of nausea also requires resolution, and this book provides insights into
this recurrent pivotal question, but consideration of this question also reveals
that techniques for the objective measurement of nausea that do not rely on
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viii Foreword
self-reporting are lacking. Understanding the basic mechanisms underlying
nausea and vomiting from diverse clinical causes is critical to identifying
novel therapeutic approaches.
The topics covered by the 15 chapters provide a wide-ranging view of the
causes of nausea and vomiting that have a significant impact on patient qual-
ity of life and for which fully effective treatment is not always available. The
chapters cover the expected digestive tract disorders associated with nausea
and vomiting but also review the less commonly considered endocrine, cen-
tral nervous system and autonomic nervous system disorders. The inclusion
of a chapter on pharmacological causes of nausea and vomiting is notable as
outside the effects of chemotherapy and anaesthesia therapeutic agents are
often overlooked and yet can affect patient compliance for a range of disor-
ders. Understanding why some treatments, but not others, induce nausea is a
challenging question with implications for the development of novel pharma-
cological therapies where there is an unmet need in many areas. The inclu-
sion of a chapter focusing on the paediatric patient draws attention to a
relatively neglected group and to the syndrome of cyclical vomiting. The
chapter on the psychophysiology of nausea and vomiting provides a reminder
of inter-individual differences which need to be taken into account when con-
sidering patients’ reports of their symptoms in relation to objective clinical
measures and in understanding why treatment efficacy may differ between
patients with apparently similar presentations.
Anti-emetics were classically based on antagonism of histamine , musca-
1
rinic and dopamine receptor antagonism and more recently 5-hydroxytrypta-
2
mine and neurokinin receptor antagonists which are particularly effective
3 1
for CINV and PONV. However, for several of the disorders covered in this
book, pharmacological interventions are not very effective. The inclusion of
chapters on nutritional management, complementary and alternative medi-
cine and gastric electrical stimulation and acustimulation draws attention to
other approaches to treatment on nausea and vomiting which may have
broader applications. Even with pharmacological therapies, treatment of nau-
sea remains more challenging than treatment of vomiting and this reflects our
relative lack of understanding of the neuropharmacology of nausea as
opposed to vomiting.
This book makes an important contribution to understanding some of the
more neglected clinical causes of nausea and vomiting and provides a wealth
of information and insights that will assist health professionals in diagnosis
and treatment of these symptoms which impact patient quality of life and
cause concern to their carers.
Paul L. R. Andrews
St. George’s University of London
London, UK
Preface
How many nauseas are there? One of the editors was interviewing a patient
who was referred for consultation for chronic unexplained nausea with occa-
sional vomiting. Her extensive workup to that point had failed to reveal a
cause of nausea. She seemed to be a normal 17-year-old who was in the office
with her mother. At an early point in the interview, I said, “Tell me about your
nausea.” To this question she replied, “Which one?” At the time, I was rather
taken aback and so I asked, “How many nauseas do you have?” To my ques-
tion she replied, “Seven.”
As you read the chapters in this book, we hope you will come to appreciate
that indeed there are probably at least seven kinds of nausea and certainly, in
fact, many, many more mechanisms of pathways to nausea. Nausea is a ubiq-
uitous symptom that even healthy individuals experience in some form or
another. But nausea is usually evoked for the safety of the individual and is
limited in duration. For example, nausea is elicited in many healthy people in
an environment of motion where visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive neuro-
sensory pathways are either overwhelmed or are fooled by the illusion of
motion, all of which evokes nausea that ranges from mild to severe and may
include vomiting. In these stressful environments of motion, nausea is a
symptom that causes the subject to be still, lie down, and seek a motionless
environment. Unfortunately, this can be very difficult on a cruise ship in tur-
bulent seas!
Nausea also has a protective function during every individual’s ongoing
search for nourishment. Even in societies with relatively safe food and pack-
aging processes, there are many dangers in regard to ingesting contaminated
foods. If the contaminated food passes visual, olfactory, and gustatory sur-
veillance and is ingested, then there is still the gastrointestinal tract to provide
another level of protection by eliciting nausea and then vomiting to expel
ingested poisons or toxins. Most human beings have experienced this type of
protective nausea and vomiting.
Finally, nausea serves an alarm function alerting us to diseases and disor-
ders in almost every organ system of the body. Nausea as a signal of impeding
or ongoing organ dysfunction or disease is probably more common than pain.
Every physician or allied health provider has taken care of patients with acute
or chronic nausea and vomiting for which the patient seeks treatment and
hopefully a specific diagnosis. But to the health care provider, a patient’s
report of nausea can be an extremely nonspecific symptom. To decipher a
specific mechanism of the nausea and a specific diagnosis and treatment can
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x Preface
be difficult, and health care providers can become frustrated when first-line
medications fail to control nausea or vomiting.
In Nausea and Vomiting: Mechanisms and Treatments, a unique and hope-
fully helpful approach to these symptoms is provided for health care p roviders,
patients, and others interested in these common symptoms. First, the physiol-
ogy of nausea and the physiology of vomiting are separated into their own
chapters to highlight the differences in this symptom (nausea) and this sign
(vomiting) and perhaps stimulate thinking of the two differently. In many
conditions if nausea could be controlled or prevented, then perhaps vomiting
could be eliminated altogether where nausea (and vomiting) serves no protec-
tive function but only adds to suffering.
Secondly, clinical features of nausea and vomiting are reviewed in sepa-
rate organ-based chapters. For example, nausea related to esophageal dis-
eases and disorders is separated from nausea related to small bowel or gastric
disorders or other organs in the gastrointestinal system. Central nervous sys-
tem and autonomic nervous system diseases and disorders are also associated
or cause nausea and vomiting, and these are reviewed in other chapters. In at
least some respects, nausea is localizable in the body as shown by prelimi-
nary studies using a nausea locator diagram. Nausea and vomiting represent
brain-gut and gut-brain interactions needs more study within the large neuro-
science umbrella. There is much to learn in regard to the multiple pathways
to multiple nauseas. Because the problem of nausea and vomiting is so exten-
sive, we chose to limit the review to some extent and did not address
chemotherapy- induced nausea and vomiting, postoperative nausea and vom-
iting, and the nausea and vomiting of motion sickness.
Treatments for nausea and vomiting remain problematic. For the most part,
drug treatments are very nonspecific. Even receptor-specific drugs such as the
5HT receptor antagonist do not help all patients. Furthermore, some very suc-
3
cessful therapies for vomiting have limited benefits to reduce nausea. A com-
prehensive approach to treatments for nausea, especially chronic nausea, is
presented and ranges from nutritional support to drugs to devices and comple-
mentary medicines. By carefully interviewing the patient in terms of various
qualities of nausea and vomiting, it is hoped a specific pathophysiologic mech-
anism can be identified which then leads to more specific treatment of the
nausea and vomiting that is based on pathophysiological mechanisms.
The editors thank each of the experts who contributed to this book. We
hope that the information in these chapters stimulates each reader to appreci-
ate the pathophysiological mechanisms that underlie different pathways to
nausea and vomiting. When these pathways can be identified, nausea can be
treated better now, today, and much better in the future as more physiological
research in nausea and vomiting is carried out and more pathophysiological-
based therapies are developed. The suffering associated with chronic unex-
plained or explained nausea and vomiting is often profound. We hope efforts
to understand nausea and vomiting and to develop better treatments will be
stimulated by this book.
Sincerely,
Kenneth L. Koch, MD
William L. Hasler, MD
Contents
1 Physiology of Nausea .................................... 1
Kenneth L. Koch
2 The Physiology of Vomiting .............................. 15
Charles C. Horn
3 Nausea and Vomiting Related to Esophagus
and Stomach Diseases ................................... 27
Kenneth L. Koch
4 Nausea and Vomiting Related to Non-esophageal
and Non-Gastric Diseases of the Gastrointestinal Tract ....... 55
Allen A. Lee
5 Nausea and Vomiting Associated with Abdominal Wall Pain .. 69
Leonardo Kapural and Patrick D. Grace
6 Nausea, Vomiting, and Hormonal Disorders ................ 77
Jorge Calles-Escandón and Hugo Rivadeneyra Pasten
7 Nausea and Vomiting Related to Autonomic
Nervous System Disorders ............................... 89
Thomas L. Abell and Dipendra Parajuli
8 Nausea and Vomiting Related to the Central
Nervous System Diseases ............................... 109
Braden Kuo and Prashant Singh
9 Pharmacological Causes and Treatments
of Nausea and Vomiting ................................ 119
William L. Hasler
10 Gastric Electrical Stimulation, Pyloroplasty,
Gastrectomy, and Acustimulation for the Treatment
of Nausea and Vomiting in the Setting of Gastroparesis ...... 139
Ihsan Al-Bayati, Irene Sarosiek, and Richard W. McCallum
11 Nutritional Management for Patients with Nausea and
Vomiting and Gastroparesis or Dumping Syndrome ......... 153
Paula S. Stuart and Debbie C. Hicks
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