The Effect of Sucking Ice Bits on Nausea and Vomiting During Chemotherapy in Patients with Breast Cancer

Cancer disease and its treatment methods affect the quality of life of those suffering from breast cancer. Nausea and vomiting are frequent side-effects of chemotherapy. Nowadays, complementary therapies are used along with routine treatments to control this disease. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of sucking ice bits with plain water on nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer.

In this clinical trial, participants were 60 breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. They were randomly divided into two groups of control and ice. The ice group received 30 bits of ice in 1 cc during chemotherapy, while control group received 30-cc tap water. Nausea was evaluated based on visual analog scale and vomiting was estimated based on the number of cases. The data were analyzed in SPSS software.

The Mean±SD of nausea in ice group was 1.268±1.9 and in the control group it was 1.787±2.9 and this difference was statistically significant after intervention (P=0.015). The mean of vomiting in ice group was 0.406±0.2 and in the control group it was 0.449±0.266, but this difference was not significant; i.e. the intervention had no significant effect on vomiting (P=0.549).

Sucking ice bits containing plain water had high effect on reducing nausea caused by chemotherapy but it had no effect on occurrence of vomiting.