Antiemetic effect of Xiao-Ban-Xia-Tang, a Chinese medicinal herb recipe, on cisplatin-induced acute and delayed emesis in minks

Xiao-Ban-Xia-Tang (XBXT), a traditional Chinese herbal medicine, has been used in China for more than 2000 years, and proved to be effective on various cases of vomiting in the clinic. To investigate the antiemetic effect of XBXT on cisplatin-induced acute and delayed emesis and its effective mechanism on Neurokinin-1 receptor (NK 1-R) in the new vomiting model of minks. Minks were randomly divided into the normal group, cisplatin group, cisplatin + ondansetron group, cisplatin + low-dose XBXT group and cisplatin + high-dose XBXT group. The antiemetic effect of drugs was investigated in the vomiting model of minks induced by cisplatin (6 mg kg −1, i.p.) in 72 h observation, and the expression of NK 1-R in the area postrema and ileum was measured by Western blot. The frequency cisplatin induces retching and vomiting was significantly reduced by pretreatment with XBXT in a dose-dependent manner during the 0–24-h and 24–72-h periods ( P < 0.05), and XBXT exhibited effective dose-dependent ( P < 0.05) inhibition on the increase of expression levels of NK1 receptor in both the ileum and area postrema. XBXT has good activity against cisplatin-induced acute and delayed emesis in minks possibly by inhibiting central or peripheral increase of NK 1-R.