Clinical Cancer Research, Vol 2, Issue 3 477-481, Copyright © 1996 by American Association for Cancer Research

ARTICLES

Severe neurotoxicity following 5-fluorouracil-based chemotherapy in a patient with dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase deficiency

CH Takimoto, ZH Lu, R Zhang, MD Liang, LV Larson, LR Cantilena Jr, JL Grem, CJ Allegra, RB Diasio and E Chu
National Cancer Institute-Navy Medical Oncology Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20889-5105, USA.

Patients with decreased dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) activity are at increased risk for experiencing serious adverse reactions following 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy. Symptoms include severe and potentially life-threatening gastrointestinal toxicity, myelosuppression, and neurological toxicity. In the present study, we describe a 50-year-old Caucasian man who developed severe encephalopathy during his second cycle of 5-FU chemotherapy. The patient remained in a comatose state for 4 days but then showed dramatic improvement in his neurological status following continuous i.v. infusion of thymidine at 8 g/m2/day. Laboratory studies revealed the patient to be severely DPD deficient, as demonstrated by DPD enzyme activity from peripheral blood mononuclear cells being below the lower limit of the 95th percentile of a control population and by Western immunoblot analysis showing undetectable levels of DPD protein. Additional studies revealed a significant defect in pyrimidine catabolism with a 3.3- and 365-fold increase in the levels of uracil in plasma and urine, respectively, compared to normal subjects. Family studies suggest that the inheritance pattern of this syndrome is complex and most consistent with an autosomal recessive trait. This study demonstrates that cancer patients with DPD deficiency are at increased risk for developing severe neurological toxicity secondary to 5-FU chemotherapy, and that infusional thymidine should be considered as a potential rescue agent against this particular host toxicity.

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