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Cancer Therapy: Clinical |
Authors' Affiliations: 1 National Cancer Center Hospital East, Kashiwa, Japan; 2 Aichi Cancer Center, Nagoya, Japan; 3 Kanagawa Cancer Center, 4 Yokohama Municipal Citizen's Hospital, Yokohama, Japan; 5 Tochigi Cancer Center, Utsunomiya, Japan; 6 National Kinki Central Hospital for Chest Disease, Sakai, Japan; 7 Osaka City General Hospital, 8 Osaka Adult Disease and Cancer Center, Osaka, Japan; and 9 National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
Requests for reprints: Kaoru Kubota, Thoracic Oncology Division, National Cancer Center Hospital East, 6-5-1 Kashiwanoha Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8577 Japan. Phone: 81-4-7133-1111; Fax: 81-4-7131-4724; E-mail: kkubota{at}east.ncc.go.jp.
| Abstract |
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Experimental Design: Between October 1999 and July 2000, 31 patients were accrued from 10 institutions. Thirty patients were assessable for toxicity, response, and survival. Treatment consisted of etoposide 100 mg/m2 on days 1 to 3, cisplatin 80 mg/m2 on day 1, and concurrent twice-daily TRT of 45 Gy beginning on day 2. The IP regimen started on day 29 and consisted of irinotecan 60 mg/m2 on days 1, 8, and 15 and cisplatin 60 mg/m2 on day 1, with three 28-day cycles.
Results: There were no treatment-related deaths. The response rate was 97% (complete response, 37%; partial response, 60%). Median overall survival was 20.2 months; 1-, 2-, and 3-year survival rates were 76%, 41%, and 38%, respectively. Of the 24 patients who started the IP regimen, 22 received two or more cycles. Hematologic toxicities of grade 3 or 4 included neutropenia (67%), anemia (50%), and thrombocytopenia (4%). Nonhematologic toxicities of grade 3 or 4 included diarrhea (8%), vomiting (8%), and febrile neutropenia (8%). Of the 20 patients with recurrence, none had local recurrence alone and only two had both local and distant metastasis as the initial sites of disease progression.
Conclusions: IP following concurrent EP plus twice-daily TRT is safe with acceptable toxicities. A randomized phase III trial comparing EP with IP following EP plus concurrent TRT for LSCLC is ongoing (JCOG0202).
The Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG) previously conducted a randomized phase III trial comparing irinotecan and cisplatin (IP) with EP in patients with extensive-stage SCLC. The response rate and overall median survival were significantly better for IP (i.e., 84.4% and 12.8 months with IP versus 67.5% and 9.4 months with EP, respectively). The 2-year survival rates were 19.5% for IP and 5.2% for EP (7). These encouraging results prompted us to explore the use of IP in LSCLC. We therefore undertook a pilot study to evaluate the safety of IP following concurrent EP plus twice-daily thoracic irradiation (TRT) for LSCLC.
| Experimental design |
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4,000/mm3, platelet count
105/mm3, hemoglobin
9.5 g/d, serum creatinine
1.5 mg/d, creatinine clearance
60 mL/min, serum bilirubin
1.5 mg/d, serum transaminase
2 x ULN, and PaO2
70 mm Hg. Exclusion criteria included active infection, uncontrolled heart disease or a history of myocardial infarction within the previous 3 months, interstitial pneumonia/active lung fibrosis on chest X-ray, peripheral neuropathy, malignant pleural or pericardial effusion, diarrhea, intestinal obstruction or paralysis, and active concomitant malignancy. The TRT portal should be no more than half of the hemithorax. No prior chemotherapy or radiotherapy was permitted. Pregnant or lactating women were excluded. Before enrollment in the study, each patient provided a complete medical history and underwent physical examination, blood cell count determinations, arterial blood gas, biochemical laboratory examinations, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, chest computed tomographic scan, and whole-brain computed tomographic or magnetic resonance imaging, abdominal ultrasound and/or computed tomographic, and isotope bone scans. Blood cell counts, differential white counts, and other laboratory data were obtained weekly during each course of chemotherapy. All patients were reassessed at the end of treatment in the same manner as at the time of enrollment.
Treatment plan. Induction chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin 80 mg/m2 on day 1 and etoposide 100 mg/m2 on days 1 to 3. TRT was begun on day 2 of the induction chemotherapy and given twice daily (1.5 Gy per fraction, with
6 hours between fractions) and directed to the primary tumor for a total dose of 45 Gy in 3 weeks. The initial field included the primary disease site with a 1.5-cm margin around the mass, the ipsilateral hilum, the entire width of the mediastinum, and the supraclavicular lymph nodes (only if there was nodal tumor involvement). TRT was done with linear accelerators and the energy was 6 to 10 MV photons. After the administration of 30 to 36 Gy, the radiation field was reduced around the primary tumor and involved lymph nodes using parallel opposed oblique fields to limit the dose to the spinal cord and protect the uninvolved lung field. Following chemoradiotherapy, patients were treated with three cycles of IP. The IP regimen started on day 29 and consisted of irinotecan 60 mg/m2 on days 1, 8, and 15 and cisplatin 60 mg/m2 on day 1, with three 28-day cycles. If the leukocyte count decreased to <3,000/mm3 or the platelet count fell below 100,000/mm3 on the first day of IP, chemotherapy was withhold until the counts recovered to
3,000/mm3 and
100,000/mm3, respectively. Administration of irinotecan was skipped on day 8 and/or 15 if the leukocyte count was
2,000/mm3, the platelet count was
50,000/mm3, or there was any diarrhea regardless of grade, or a fever of
37.5°C. The dose of irinotecan in subsequent cycles was reduced by 10 mg/m2 from the planned dose if grade 4 hematologic toxic effects or grade 2 or 3 diarrhea developed. Administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor was prohibited on the days of chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Primary prophylactic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor was not given. For patients who had developed grade 4 neutropenia during the previous cycles of chemotherapy, secondary prophylactic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor administration was allowed. Prophylactic antibiotics were not given.
Treatment was discontinued in patients with grade 4 nonhematologic toxicity. Prophylactic cranial irradiation (25 Gy in 10 fractions) was conducted for patients showing a complete response or near complete response defined as a reduction of >90% in the sum of the products of the greatest perpendicular dimensions of bidimensional lesions. Tumor responses were assessed radiographically. Standard WHO response criteria (8) were used, and all responses were confirmed
28 days after initial documentation of the response. JCOG criteria were used to assess toxicity (9). JCOG criteria are similar to those of the National Cancer Institute Common Toxicity Criteria (10). Esophageal toxicity was graded as follows: grade 3, moderate to severe ulceration and edema, cannot eat, requires narcotic drugs; grade 4, serious ulceration and edema, resulting in complete obstruction or perforation.
Statistical consideration. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the safety and feasibility of sequential administration of IP following EP plus concurrent twice-daily TRT. Simon's optimal two-stage design was used to determine the sample size and decision criteria (11). The regimen would be considered feasible if two cycles or more of IP were completed without grade 4 nonhematologic toxicity or treatment related death in at least 90% of patients and not feasible if the completion rate was
70%. The required number of patients was estimated to be 27, with
= 0.05 and ß = 0.80. We determined the planned sample size for the study to be 30 patients accrued over 12 months, with 36 months of additional follow-up.
Time-to-progression was calculated from the date of entry into study until the date of documented progression or death (in the absence of progression). Survival was calculated from the protocol treatment start date until the date of death. Both intervals were determined by the Kaplan-Meier method.
The protocol was approved by the Clinical Trial Review Committee of JCOG and the Institutional Review Board of the participating institutions. All patients provided written informed consent.
| Results |
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Toxicity. Toxicities associated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy are summarized in Table 2. The major toxicity was neutropenia. One patient had febrile neutropenia and septic shock. The same patient experienced grade 3 fatigue and anterior chest pain. IP was well tolerated (Table 3), despite diarrhea, vomiting, and hematologic toxicities. One patient, who had grade 2 nausea/vomiting, refused further treatment after the first cycle of IP. Another patient, who refused days 8 and 15 irinotecan during the second cycle, had grade 2 diarrhea and nausea/vomiting. No grade 3 or 4 pulmonary toxicity was observed. There were no treatment-related deaths. Neither grade 2, or more severe, late radiation toxicities nor radiation recall reactions were reported.
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| Discussion |
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The present trial showed IP following concurrent EP plus twice-daily TRT to be safe, with acceptable toxicities. Hematologic toxicities and diarrhea, while on the IP regimen following concurrent chemoradiotherapy, are similar to those of a previous phase III trial conducted by JCOG (JCOG9503; ref. 7). Neither grade 3 or 4 pulmonary toxicity nor treatment related deaths were observed. The West Japan Thoracic Oncology Group conducted a similar phase II study of EP plus twice-daily TRT followed by IP for LSCLC (15). Promising response (88%) and 2-year survival (51%) rates were reported, with acceptable toxicities.
Local failure is an important problem in the treatment of LSCLC. Turrisi et al. showed the rate of local failure to be reduced in the twice-daily TRT plus EP group as compared with the once-daily TRT plus EP group: the rate was 52% in the group receiving once-daily therapy and 36% in that receiving twice-daily therapy (6). Eighteen percent of patients who received EP plus concurrent twice-daily TRT had first progression within the thorax in the previous JCOG phase III trial (5). It is noteworthy that no patient relapsed solely at the local-regional site and only two patients had both local and distant involvement in the present trial. There may be an interaction between TRT and IP even given sequentially. Another possibility relates to recent improvements in radiotherapeutic techniques with better imaging of the target volume by chest computed tomographic. This possibility should be assessed in a future randomized trial.
It is important to integrate new active anticancer agents to the combined modality treatments for LSCLC. Irinotecan has been clearly shown to have clinical activity in a randomized trial, against extensive-stage SCLC. Several other new agents including targeted therapies have failed to show clinical activity against SCLC. Based on these considerations, we conducted a randomized phase III trial comparing EP with IP following EP plus concurrent TRT for the treatment of LSCLC (JCOG0202). In the JCOG0202, eligible patients were randomized after the completion of induction chemoradiotherapy. Although feasibility may be a limitation of the present study, improvements are anticipated with appropriate use of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, antibiotics, and patient education.
In summary, irinotecan and cisplatin following EP plus concurrent twice-daily TRT is a safe and active regimen for LSCLC. The observed low rate of local recurrence is encouraging. A randomized phase III trial comparing EP with IP following EP plus concurrent TRT for the treatment of LSCLC is currently under way.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
Note: Portions of this study were presented at the 39th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, May 31 to June 3, 2003, Chicago, Illinois.
Received 8/31/04; revised 3/14/05; accepted 5/ 6/05.
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