Zidan, J., Haim, N., Beny, A., Stein, M., Gez, E., & Kuten, A. (2001). Octreotide in the treatment of severe chemotherapy-induced diarrhea. Annals of Oncology, 12(2), 227–229.
Patients with chemotherapy-induced diarrhea (CID) refractory to loperamide received 100 mcg subcutaneous octreotide three times per day for three days followed by 50 mcg three times per day for three days. The median time between chemotherapy and starting octreotide was 8 days (range = 5–9 days).
This was a prospective study.
Patients recorded the number of bowel movements. Complete response (CR) was defined as no diarrheal stools per day; partial response (PR) was defined as 1–2 diarrheal stools per day; and no response was defined as three or more diarrheal stools per day. Progression was defined as an increase in the number of diarrheal stools.
Octreotide was found to be highly effective as second-line therapy in managing patients with CID.
The sample size was small.