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BACKGROUND Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy in American men, and as many as 70% of those initially treated for localized disease will ultimately progress and be considered candidates to receive therapy for metastatic cancer [Fuks et al.: Int J Radiat Oncol Bio Phys 21:537–547, 1991; Chodak et al.: N Engl J Med 330:246–248, 1994]. Although most will respond initially to hormone manipulation, essentially all will fail and require additional therapy. No standard chemotherapy approach has been shown to prolong survival significantly, and new agents are desperately needed. Topotecan is a new topoisomerase-1 inhibitor whose early investigation suggested possible activity in hormone-refractory prostate cancer. METHODS In this phase II trial, patients having failed one or two prior androgen ablative therapies were treated with 21-day continuous intravenous infusions of topotecan at a dose of 0.5 mg/m2 per day every 28 days. RESULTS Twenty-six eligible patients were entered on the study. There were no confirmed tumor responses. Median survival was 9 months. The most common toxicities were hematologic, with 8 of 24 assessable patients experiencing grade 4 toxicity. CONCLUSION Topotecan infusions at this dose are ineffective in the management of hormone-refractory prostate cancer. Prostate 52: 264–268, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

PURPOSE We designed an all-oral regimen of etoposide and cyclophosphamide for use in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS Eligible patients were chemotherapy-naive and had histologically confirmed assessable or measurable stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer. Patients received etoposide 50 mg/m2/d orally days 1 through 14 and cyclophosphamide 50 mg/m2/d orally days 1 through 14 every 28 days. Doses on later cycles were adjusted for myelosuppression. RESULTS Sixty-six patients (64 eligible patients) received 192 cycles of oral extended etoposide/cyclophosphamide therapy (median, two cycles; range, zero to 15). Therapy was well tolerated with the mean dose per cycle being 104% of the originally scheduled dose. Two patients (3%) achieved a complete response and six (9%) achieved a partial response. Leukopenia, anemia, nausea/vomiting, and alopecia were the most common toxicities. Median survival was 6 months, and the 1-year survival rate was 25.6%, comparable to more intensive treatments. CONCLUSION Oral extended etoposide/cyclophosphamide is a well-tolerated alternative for the treatment of stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer and can be used as a basis for the design of further outpatient regimens.

PURPOSE To test the concept that cisplatin dose-intensity is important in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) performed a randomized trial comparing standard-dose cisplatin (SDCP) 50 mg/m2 days 1 and 8 on a 28-day cycle for eight cycles, high-dose cisplatin (HDCP) 100 mg/m2 days 1 and 8 for four cycles, and high-dose cisplatin plus mitomycin (HDCP-M) 8 mg/m2 day 1. To isolate the effects of dose-intensity versus total dose, the planned cumulative cisplatin dose was 800 mg/m2 in each arm. PATIENTS AND METHODS Between July 1988 and April 1990, 356 patients were enrolled and 323 were eligible and assessable. All patients had metastatic, measurable disease, were chemotherapy-naive, and had a performance status (PS) of 0 to 2. RESULTS Confirmed complete plus partial response rates were SDCP, 12%; HDCP, 14%; and HDCP-M, 27% (P < .05). Complete responses were uncommon (HDCP, 3%; HDCP-M, 4%) and were observed only in the high-dose arms. Progressive disease occurred more frequently in the SDCP arm (57%) compared with HDCP (38%) or HDCP-M (34%) (P < .05). However, there were no significant differences in median survival times (SDCP, 6.9 months; HDCP, 5.3 months; HDCP-M, 7.2 months; P = .53). The mean delivered dose-intensity for cisplatin was significantly greater in the high-dose arms: HDCP 41 mg/m2/wk and HDCP-M 39 mg/m2/wk, versus SDCP 23 mg/m2/wk (P = .05). The high-dose arms resulted in an increased incidence of ototoxicity, emesis, and myelosuppression, but similar degrees of renal toxicity and neuropathy compared with SDCP. CONCLUSION This study does not confirm evidence of a steep clinical dose-response curve for cisplatin in NSCLC at the cisplatin dose-intensities achieved. The addition of mitomycin increases the response rate, but does not improve survival. Continued evaluation of new agents in this disease is warranted.

This study involved the administration of amonafide intravenously 300 mg/m2 daily times five days every three weeks to 16 refractory and relapsed myeloma patients. Doses were escalated to toxicity. These doses caused severe thrombocytopenia and granulocytopenia in seven patients. No responses were seen in this heavily pretreated group of patients.

Twenty-two evaluable patients with advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, but without prior chemotherapy or immunotherapy, received recombinant tumor necrosis factor (rTNF). rTNF was given as an intravenous infusion over 30 min daily x 5, every 14 days, at a starting dose of 150 micrograms/m2/day. Toxicities included fevers/rigors, nausea/vomiting/anorexia, flu-like symptoms, hypotension, hyperglycemia, anemia, coagulopathy, hepatotoxicity, and hypertriglyceridemia. Laboratory evidence of disseminated intravascular coagulopathy occurred in 11 patients, with only 3 of these patients having clinical manifestations. Two patients suffered from pulmonary emboli. The high incidence of coagulopathy was felt to be, at least in part, disease related. No objective responses were observed with a 95% confidence interval of 0-15%.

PURPOSE This single-arm phase II trial was designed to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of continuous-course, high-dose thoracic irradiation (RT) combined with concurrent daily low-dose cisplatin followed by high-dose cisplatin consolidation in patients with locally advanced unresectable non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The daily chemotherapy regimen was designed to optimize the radiosensitizing properties of cisplatin. PATIENTS AND METHODS Sixty-five patients from 21 participating institutions were entered onto the study between April 1989 and May 1991. Protocol therapy consisted of daily intravenous (i.v.) cisplatin (5 mg/m2) plus concurrent continuous-course RT (61 Gy over 6 1/2 weeks) both delivered Monday through Friday each week. After a 3- to 4-week rest period, this was followed by three 28-day cycles of cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 or subsequently 50 mg/m2 administered i.v. on days 1 and 8 of each cycle. RESULTS Sixty-four patients were eligible; the majority had unresectable stage IIIa (36%) or IIIb (55%) NSCLC. The remaining 9% had recurrent disease confined to the chest (five patients) or stage II disease (one patient). The feasibility of this regimen is demonstrated by the fact that only five patients (8%) were unable to complete daily cisplatin and RT because of toxicity. Esophagitis (16%), leukopenia (14%), nausea (8%), and vomiting (6%) were the most common severe (grade 3) toxicities. There was only one life-threatening toxicity (grade 4 nausea) and no treatment-related deaths. The objective response rate was 39%, and six patients (9%) achieved a radiographic complete response (CR). The median survival duration for all patients was 14 months, and the 1- and 2-year actuarial survival rates were 56% and 24%, respectively. For stage IIIa patients, the median survival duration and 2-year survival rate were 17 months and 38%, as compared with 10 months and 14% for stage IIIb patients, respectively. CONCLUSION Daily low-dose cisplatin plus concurrent high-dose continuous-course RT is a well-tolerated out-patient regimen. The survival results are encouraging and appear to be equivalent to more toxic combined approaches. These results warrant further testing of combined daily platinum analogs with RT.

Between April 1986 and March 1987, 42 patients with advanced sarcoma were entered in this multi-institutional trial evaluating ifosfamide plus doxorubicin. The majority of patients had leiomyosarcoma and malignant fibrous histiocytoma although two patients with sarcomas of osseous origin were included. Doxorubicin was administered at a dosage of 60 mg/m2 by continuous push and ifosfamide 5.0 g/m2 by continuous infusion over 24 hours with mesna (7.5 g2 over 36 hours) with courses repeated every 3 weeks until progression, toxicity cumulative doxorubicin dosage of 450 mg/m2. Overall, 15 (36%) patients demonstrated objective remissions including three complete and 12 partial remissions (95% confidence limits, 21.5% to 52.0%). The median duration of remission was 7.0 months and the median survival time for all eligible patients was 8.0 months. Toxicity was predominantly hematologic with the median leukocyte nadir being 1,300 per microliter of blood and documented sepsis in six patients. These data support activity for ifosfamide plus doxorubicin in patients with advanced sarcoma, but the actual contribution of ifosfamide needs to be evaluated through prospective randomized trials which are currently underway.

In a study of the effectiveness of high intravenous doses of metoclopramide as an antiemetic, 41 patients with advanced cancer who were being treated with cisplatin were entered into two double-blind trials. In the first trial patients were randomly assigned to receive either metoclopramide or placebo, and in the second trial they received either metoclopramide or prochlorperazine. Patients given metoclopramide had significantly fewer episodes of emesis than patients given placebo (medians, 1.0 vs. 10.5; P = 0.001) or prochlorperazine (medians, 1.5 vs. 12.0; P = 0.005). Metoclopramide was superior to placebo and to prochlorperazine in reducing the volume of emesis (P = 0.001 and P = 0.022, respectively) and was more effective than placebo in shortening the duration of nausea (P = 0.042) and vomiting (P = 0.028). Side effects from metoclopramide were minor, with mild sedation frequently observed; one patient had a brief extrapyramidal reaction. We conclude that metoclopramide in high intravenous doses has greater antiemetic activity than placebo or prochlorperazine in patients receiving cisplatin chemotherapy.

To obtain information relevant to the question of bone marrow transplantation, we examined the prognostic significance of disease features recorded at the time of diagnosis among 625 patients, aged 5 to 45, with Philadelphia chromosome-positive, nonblastic chronic granulocytic leukemia. The actuarial death rate for this population was 5% during the first year after diagnosis, 12% during the second year, and averaged 22.5% per year during the next eight years. Multivariable regression analysis of features recorded in nearly all cases indicated that sex, spleen size, hematocrit, platelet count, and percentage of circulating blasts were significant prognostic indicators. Analyses of additional data available in 113 to 421 cases suggested that serum lactic dehydrogenase activity, percentage of blasts in marrow, nucleated RBCs in blood, and percentage of basophils plus eosinophils might also provide useful prognostic information. A Cox model, generated with five variables representing features recorded regularly (the first five listed), permitted segregation of these patients into three groups with significantly different survival patterns. The high- risk group exhibited an actuarial mortality of 30% during the first two years after diagnosis and an annual risk of 30% thereafter. In contrast, the most favorable group had a two-year actuarial mortality of 9% and an average risk thereafter of 17% per year, with a median survival of 5 1/2 years. We conclude that it should be possible to classify potential candidates for bone marrow transplantation according to risk with conventional therapy. Such information may be useful in making decisions regarding early v deferred marrow transplantation.