Effectiveness and safety of cabazitaxel chemotherapy for metastatic castration-resistant prostatic carcinoma on Turkish patients (The Anatolian Society of Medical Oncology)

OBJECTIVE

Prostate cancer is among the most common cancers in males. Prostate cancer is androgen dependent in the beginning, but as time progresses, it becomes refractory to androgen deprivation treatment. At this stage, docetaxel has been used as standard treatment for years. Cabazitaxel has become the first chemotherapeutic agent which has been shown to increase survival for patients with metastatic Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC) that progresses after docetaxel. Phase 3 TROPIC study demonstrated that cabazitaxel prolongs survival.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In this study, we evaluated a total of 103 patients who took cabazitaxel chemotherapy for mCRPC diagnosis in 21 centers of Turkey, retrospectively. This study included patients who progressed despite docetaxel treatments, had ECOG performance score between 0-2, and used cabazitaxel treatment. Patients received cabazitaxel 25 mg/m2 at every 3 weeks, and prednisolone 5 mg twice a day.

RESULTS

Median number of cabazitaxel cures was 5.03 (range: 1-17). Cabazitaxel response evaluation detected that 34% of the patients had a partial response, 22.3% had stable disease and 32% had a progressive disease. Grade 3-4 hematological toxicities were neutropenia (28.2%), neutropenic fever (14.5%), anemia (6.7%), and thrombocytopenia (3.8%). In our study, median progression-free survival (PFS) was 7.7 months and overall survival (OS) was 10.6 months.

CONCLUSIONS

This study reflects toxicity profile of Turkish patients as a Caucasian race. We suggest that cabazitaxel is a safe and effective treatment option for mCRPC patients who progress after docetaxel. Moreover, ethnicity may play important roles both in treatment response and in toxicity profile.

A retrospective analysis of women's chances to become pregnant after completion of chemotherapy: a single center experience

PURPOSE

With the improvement in anticancer therapies, the survival of women with malignancies has increased and infertility may affect the quality of life of premenopausal women, who experience temporary or permanent amenorrhea due to chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to review the rate of pregnancies among women with malignancy previously treated with chemotherapy.

METHODS

We retrospectively recorded 317 women younger than 40 years of age who were treated with chemotherapy (and a number of them with additional radiotherapy/RT) due to several malignancies between 2007-2010. The patients who got pregnant after stopping chemotherapy and during followup were analyzed.

RESULTS

Among women with breast cancer (n=116), malignant lymphoma (n=85), ovarian cancer (n=26) and colon cancer (n=90), 20 got pregnant after a median 22.9 months (range 10.7-96.5) from the end of chemotherapy. Childbearing was uneventful and newborns were healthy.

CONCLUSION

Women who had previously received chemotherapy for malignancy can get pregnant and deliver healthy newborns.

Is there a cut-off value for standardized uptake values in positron emission tomography for predicting response to treatment and survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer? Single center experience

PURPOSE

Positron emission tomography (PET) is an important imaging technique for the diagnosis and staging of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In this study, we evaluated the standardized uptake values (SUV) of PET in NSCLC patients to determine whether there was a cut-off value for predicting response to treatment and survival.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed 149 patients with locally advanced NSCLC. All the patients were staged by PET-computerized tomography (CT) after diagnosis. 18fluoro-2-deoxyribose (FDG) was used as the PET tracer. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to detect whether any prognostic factors were related to response to treatment.

RESULTS

The median patient age was 60 years and the median follow-up time 10.3 months. One-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were 31% and 58.7%, respectively. The median OS was 15.4 months. Stage, sex and response to treatment were important factors for OS and PFS. We defined a cut-off value for SUVmax (the highest standardized uptake value for all cross sectional areas) as 10.8 by using ROC analysis. Multivariate analysis identified response to treatment as the most significant (p<0.05) prognostic factor for OS. Logistic regression analysis showed that SUVmax and weight loss were important for response to treatment.

CONCLUSION

Multivariate analysis indicated that whilst response to treatment was an important factor for predicting survival, the SUVmax was also significant for determining response to therapy and a cut-off value for SUVmax was defined as 10.8.

Prolonged interval in prophylactic heparin flushing for maintenance of subcutaneous implanted port care in patients with cancer

The long-term use of subcutaneous implanted ports for chemotherapy in cancer patients has been associated with the occurrence of thrombosis and infection. In this study, we compared the safety and efficacy of administration of 1000 U of heparin flushes in prolonged interval (every 6 weeks) with standard dose and schedule (500 U every 4 weeks) for port-related infections and thrombosis during periods of non-use. Data were collected retrospectively from patients treated for various cancer types (matched as 2:1 for age, gender, stage of the disease). Patients who had diseases that could cause thrombosis or bleeding in their past medical history, or were taking oral anticoagulants, or had contraindications for heparin usage were excluded. After completing their chemotherapy, 59 patients received prolonged interval, while 30 patients received standard schedule. All patients were followed for at least 1 year. No clinically documented port-related infection or thrombosis has been found in both groups. Also, none of the devices was removed during this time. Prophylactic flushing of central venous ports with 1000 U of heparin in every 6 weeks might be a safe, easy, cheaper, comfortable and effective alternative to standard dose and schedule for preventing thrombosis and infections.

Pulmonary toxicity in patients receiving docetaxel chemotherapy

e13532

Background: Docetaxel is used widely as monotherapy or in combination for the treatment of various types of cancers. Although rarely observed, pulmonary toxicity can be seen with docetaxel. This side effect had been reported mostly in non-small cell lung cancer patients receiving docetaxel. We aimed to investigate the pulmonary toxicity in patients receiving docetaxel chemotherapy other than lung cancer. Methods: 34 patients were investigated prospectively to demonstrate the pulmonary toxicity of docetaxel. Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans were applied to all patients before chemotherapy and 14 - 21 days after completion of treatment. We used a HRCT scoring system that was based on the previous studies. All HRCT images were reviewed by two different observers. Results: We have seen no pulmonary symptoms that may reflect pulmonary toxicity in 34 patients. There were statistically significant differences between pre- and post-treatment values of FEV1 (L/sec) (p<0.05), FEV1/FVC (%) (p<0.05), FEF25–75 (L/sec) (p<0.01), FEF25–75 (%) (p<0,01), DLCO (mL/mmHg/min) (p<0.001), DLCO (%) (p<0.001), DLCO/VA (DLCO/L) (p<0.05), and DLCO/VA (%) (p<0.05). Also, there was a statistically significant difference between the pre- and post-treatment HRCT scores. The differences between pre- and post- treatment values of pulmonary function tests were not correlated with the number of docetaxel cycles and cumulative dose. There was a statistical relationship between number of docetaxel cycles (r =0.468, p<0.0001), docetaxel cumulative dose (r=0,596, p<0.0001) and HRCT scores after completion of docetaxel treatment. Conclusions: Although we have shown that docetaxel treatment causes a decline in PFTs and worsens HRCT scores, the symptoms of patients were not consistent with these differences. Therefore, it should be noted that the negative effects of docetaxel on PFTs and HRCT scores should be investigated by increasing the number of patients.

No significant financial relationships to disclose.