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Oncologia Medica and
1 Medicina Interna, Università di Torino, Azienda Ospedaliera San Luigi, Regione Gonzole 10 10043 Orbassano, Torino, Italy
2 Endocrinologia, Azienda Ospedaliera Santa Croce e Carle, Cuneo, Italy
3 Istituto di Endocrinologia, Università Cattolica, Policlinico A Gemelli, Roma, Italy
4 Endocrinology and Metabolism Service, Division of Medicine, Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel
5 Oncologia Medica, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Rozzano, Milano, Italy
6 Oncologia Medica, Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano, Italy
7 Urologia, Azienda Ospedaliera San Luigi, Orbassano, TO, Italy
8 Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche Chirurgiche, Endocrinologia, Università di Padova, Italy
(Requests for offprints should be addressed to Luigi Dogliotti; Email: luigi.dogliotti{at}unito.it)
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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| Patients and methods |
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Treatment plan
The EDP scheme consisted of intravenous administration of etoposide at doses of 100 mg/m2 on days 57, doxorubicin 20 mg/m2 on days 1 and 8, cisplatin 40 mg/m2 on days 2 and 9. Cycles were repeated every 4 weeks. Treatment was delayed for 1 week in case of neutrophil count of 1000 to 1500/mm3, platelet count of 50 000 to 100 000/mm3, or grade >2 extrahematologic toxicity on day of treatment. Dose reduction (25%) was planned in case of neutrophil count<500/ mm3 and/or platelet count<30 000/mm3, experienced in the interval (nadir) between two cycles. Mitotane was given orally at the starting dose of 1 g/day, with further progressive dose increments up to 4 g/day or the maximum tolerated dose. Mitotane was administered concomitantly with chemotherapy, during the rest period between successive cycles, and afterwards until disease progression or the onset of severe toxicity. All patients received concomitant adrenal replacement therapy to prevent adrenal insufficiency. EDP administration was planned for a maximum of six cycles. Treatment was discontinued early in case of unacceptable toxicity, a patients refusal to continue treatment or disease progression.
Patient evaluation
Pre-chemotherapy staging included: physical examination, assessment of PS, routine chemistry (including blood cell counts, electrolytes, renal and liver function tests), determination of steroid hormone levels, electrocardiography and echocardiography and computed tomography (CT) scanning of chest and abdomen. Physical examination and routine chemistry were repeated before each cycle of chemotherapy. Steroids were measured in-house at each participating center using radioimmunoassay methods and commercially available reagents. All samples for an individual subject were determined in a single assay in duplicate. Intra- and inter-assay coefficients of variation for all hormone variables were less than 10 and 15% respectively.
Evaluation of response and toxicity
Tumor status and endocrine evaluation were assessed at 3 and 6 months during chemotherapy administration, and every 3 months afterwards until evidence of disease progression. Objective responses were classified according to WHO criteria (Miller et al. 1981): complete response (CR) was defined as the disappearance of all clinical evidence of tumor on physical examination or on radiography; partial response (PR) required at least a 50% decrease in all measurable tumor size for at least 4 weeks; stable disease was defined as a<50% regression of all measurable lesions or<25% increase in the size of any measurable lesion for at least 4 weeks; progressive disease (PR) was defined as a >25% increase in the size of any measurable lesion or appearance of new lesions; complete hormone response was defined as the normalization of all adrenocortical steroids; and partial hormone response was defined as a reduction greater than 50% of pre-treatment levels. Changes in hormone levels per se were not considered as a response to treatment. Conversely, patients attaining a complete clinical response with persistence of abnormal hormone levels were considered as partial responders. Toxicities were graded using WHO criteria (Miller et al. 1981). Time to progression (TTP) was defined as the time from the beginning of treatment until date of disease progression and overall survival (OS) was defined as the time from beginning of treatment until date of death or the last date of follow-up.
Statistical methods
The primary end point of the study was the assessment of the response rate. According to the optimal two-stage phase II study design by Simon (1989), the treatment program was designed to refuse response rates<20% (p0) and to provide a statistical power of 80% in assessing the activity of the regimen as a 35% response rate. The upper limit for first-stage drug rejection was 5 responses of the first 22 patients, the upper limit of second-stage rejection was 19 responses of 72 cases consecutively enrolled. Secondary end points were the determination of time to progression and overall survival. All activity and survival analyses were performed including all registered patients, according to an "intent to treat" principle. All survival functions were computed using the Kaplan Meier method and compared using the log-rank test. A landmark method (Simon 1989) was used to determine the survival from a point 4 months after the initiation of therapy to provide an unbiased conditional estimate of TTP and OS. A period of 4 months was selected because this was the time point of first treatment evaluation in most cases. To investigate the relative importance of various factors for TTP and OS, the Cox proportional hazard model was applied. The Statistica (Statsoft, Tulsa, OK, USA) for Windows package was used for statistical computation.
| Results |
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The study was open for enrollment between 1993 and 2003, during this period 72 eligible patients were enrolled from 26 institutions. Table 1
shows the pretreatment patient characteristics. One patient did not meet the eligibility criteria since he was 73 years old in accordance. According to the intent to treat analysis by which he was evaluated. In 61 patients (84.7%) primary disease had been previously surgically removed, 19 patients (26.3%) had undergone multiple resections for local recurrence or metastatic disease. The median time between diagnosis and initiation of EDP+mitotane treatment was 7.3 months (range 0252 month).
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Treatment activity
An objective regression was observed in 35 out of 72 patients (48.6%; 95% CI: 37.160.3%). Five patients (6.9%) achieved a clinical complete response, 20 (27.8%) stable disease, while 16 (22.2%) progressed. No difference in response rate has been observed according to functional and non functional tumors. Forty-two patients out of 48 showing hormonal hyper-secretion at baseline had hormones monitored during treatment. Hormonal response was observed in 28 cases (66.7%), 16 (38.1%) attained a complete hormonal regression. Eight patients showed no change in hormone levels during treatment while in six patients hormone levels increased remarkably. Surgery of residual disease was performed in five patients who were classified as partial responders and in six patients who showed a tumor shrinkage<50% (classified as stable disease). Ten of these patients underwent radical removal of the disease and became disease free (13.8%). In one patient no neoplastic cells were observed at residual histology. Residual disease in radically resected patients was primary adrenal cancer or local recurrence in seven patients, lung metastases in two patients, and primary adrenal cancer+liver metastases in one patient. Surgery was also attempted as a salvage option in three patients with progressive disease after chemotherapy, but radical resection was never obtained.
Time to progression and overall survival
At the last follow-up appointment (March 2004), 56 patients (77.8%) had disease progression and 43 (59.7%) had died. Median TTP and OS of the entire cohort were 9.1 and 28.5 months respectively (18.2 and 47.7 months respectively, in the patient subset attaining a disease response). TTP was greater than 2 years in 14 patients and greater than 5 years in seven patients. OS was greater than 2 years in 35 patients and greater than 5 years in 10 patients. Using the landmark method, patients who attained a disease free status after treatment, i.e. complete responders (as total of 5) plus those radically operated (a total of 10), showed a longer TTP and OS as compared with patients showing a partial response and those with no response (Fig. 1
). A number of baseline prognostic factors such as sex, disease free survival (DFS), PS, single vs multiple sites of disease, and type of hormonal secretion, have been tested as predictors of both TTP and OS. In univariate analysis (Table 2
), short disease free survival, low PS, multiple disease sites and the functional status of the tumor were significantly related to poor survival. Only the functional status of the tumor significantly correlated to TTP. Patients with androgen hypersecretion showed longer OS, while patients with cortisol hypersecretion (with or without androgen hypersecretion) showed shorter OS, as compared to their counterparts. Factors attaining a statistical significance in univariate analysis were evaluated in multivariate analysis (Table 3
). DFS and the functional status of the tumor were independent variables associated to OS while the presence of multiple sites of disease and patient PS did not enter the model.
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A total of 357 EDP courses were administered (median 6, range 113). Associated side effects are reported in Table 4
. The most frequent toxicity was hematologic: grade >2 toxicity for white blood cells were recorded in 10% of patients at recycle and in 33% of patients at nadir. There was a toxic death due to septic shock caused by prolonged neutropenia. The most common extra-hematologic side effects were gastrointestinal, neurologic, asthenia and myalgias, but were less than grade 3 in most cases. Neurologic toxicity was central in two patients, peripheral in 14 cases, and was both central and peripheral in five cases. All patients received at least one treatment cycle and 38 (52.8%) patients completed the treatment plan (six cycles), including three patients who received 8, 8, and 13 cycles respectively. The EDP regimen was delayed 1 week for 30 patients (41.7%), and 2 weeks for 14 patients (19.4%). Leukopenia and infections were the principal reasons for these delays. Dose reduction of all the three EDP drugs was performed in seven patients due to hematologic toxicity. The planned dose of mitotane (4 g daily) was regularly received by 21 patients (29.2%). The maximum tolerated dose was 3 g/day for 35 patients (48.6%), 2 g/day for ten (13.9%), and 1 g/ day for five (6.9%). One patient received no mitotane at all because he had experienced severe peripheral neurotoxicity while taking the drug in adjuvant setting. The main reasons for reducing mitotane doses were neurologic or gastrointestinal toxicities. Five patients interrupted mitotane before ending the treatment plan due to neurologic toxicity (two patients), gastrointestinal toxicity (two patients) and PS deterioration (one patient).
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| Discussion |
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| Acknowledgements |
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The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest that would prejudice this studys impartiality.
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