G. Aravantinos et al., Ifosfamide plus oral etoposide salvage chemotherapy for platinum-resistantpaclitaxel-pretreated ovarian cancer, ANN ONCOL, 11(5), 2000, pp. 607-612
Background: The prognosis of platinum resistant ovarian cancer is very poor
and the treatment of choice has not been clearly defined.
Patients and methods: We conducted a phase II study with the combination of
ifosfamide i.v. at 2.25 g/m(2) (days 1, 2) and etoposide per os at 100 mg
daily (days 1-10) every four weeks. To be eligible for the study patients h
ad to be resistant to platinum and paclitaxel pretreated.
Results: Forty-one patients entered the study. The median interval from the
previous chemotherapy was 3.9 months. The median number of previous chemot
herapeutic regimens was 2. Severe toxicities included neutropenia (41% of p
atients), leukopenia (29%) and thrombocytopenia (13%). Thirty-five patients
are assessable for response. Nine patients responded (22% of the eligible,
26% of the assessable), four of them demonstrated complete response to che
motherapy (10% and 12%, respectively), while three patients demonstrated st
abilization of their progressive disease. After a median follow-up of 18 mo
nths, time to progression is 3 months (range 0.9-14.4), duration of respons
e is 9 months (2.5-11) and median survival is 13 months (2.5-37.4+).
Conclusions: The combination of ifosfamide with oral etoposide appears to h
ave significant but manageable toxicity and encouraging efficacy in platinu
m resistant ovarian cancer.