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Objective: To investigate the prevalence and characteristics of gemcitabine-based chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia in Chinese patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Materials and Methods: Medical records of 197 patients with histologically proven NSCLC received gemcitabine-based chemotherapy from June 2011 to June 2013 in our hospital were collected. The relative risk factors were identified and evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses.Results: The incidence of gemcitabine-based chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia in these NSCLC patients was 85.8%. Between thrombocytopenia and nonthrombocytopenia patients, in patients with thrombocytopenia and thrombocytopenia, we found Stage III/IV patients got more probabilities for thrombocytopenia (P < 0.01). In addition, patients who received gemcitabine and cisplatin (GP) regimen resulted in more thrombocytopenia than gemcitabine and carboplatin (GC) and other regimens (P < 0.001). In addition, majority of the thrombocytopenia patients presented thrombocytopenia in their first cycle (P < 0.001). Whereas, other potential risk factors such as age, gender, performance status value, diabetes mellitus or not, and other underlying disease (hypertension and hepatopathy) were not showed such significance in this study. Further, the multivariate analysis revealed that stage (odds ratio [OR] 7.113, P < 0.01) and chemotherapy cycles (OR 0.543, P < 0.01) were also statistically significant independent risk factors for gemcitabine-based chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia.Conclusion: This study shows that thrombocytopenia is common in Chinese NSCLC patients receiving gemcitabine-based regimens. Chemotherapy cycles and stage might be the important factors influencing the occurrence of gemcitabine-based regimens-induced thrombocytopenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the predictors and impact of cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy for stage IIIa-IV nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients in China. Methods: Medical records of 132 patients who underwent chemotherapy from January 2008 to December 2010 in our hospital were retrospectively reviewed. The response of first-line gemcitabine (GEM) and platinum doublets chemotherapy was evaluated, and the overall survival (OS) of all patients was followed. Further, risk factors of receipt cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy or not were identified and evaluated by univariate analyses. Results: Sixty-six cases have undergone cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy for lung cancer. The OS between patients received first-line GEM plus platinum doublets chemotherapy and patients without cytotoxic second chemotherapy had no statistical difference (P = 0.73). Smoking or not might be a meaningful predictor for cytotoxic second-line therapy among these patients in this investigation (P < 0.05). Other factors, such as age (≥65 or < 65), gender, alcohol use, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, histology type, number of cycles of first-line chemotherapy, and response of first-line chemotherapy had no statistical difference between patients received first-line GEM plus platinum doublets chemotherapy and patients received cytotoxic second chemotherapy (P > 0.05). In the sub-analysis, we found that the OS between patients received first-line GEM plus platinum doublets chemotherapy and patients without cytotoxic second chemotherapy had statistical difference in the population whose OS < 540 days (P = 0.019). Moreover, in these patients, the blood type was found to be a selected factor in receiving cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy or not (P < 0.05). Whereas other factors were not shown their selected effect (P > 0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that though the essentiality of cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy for stage IIIa-IV EGFR mutation indefinite NSCLC is unclear, patients who are blood type AB with poor prognosis and short OS might be a dominant population for cytotoxic second-line chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]