Long term oral etoposide as second-line therapy in recurrent epithelial carcinoma of the ovary

ABSTRACT

The activity and toxicity of etoposide in women with recurrent ovarian cancer was evaluated in a case series of women with recurrent ovarian cancer who had measurable disease.All patients had prior platinum-based chemotherapy and developed progressive disease. Etoposide was given as 50mg/day for 21 days every 4 weeks until progression of disease or prohibitive toxicity. Between December 1999 and January 2004, 32 patients were enrolled in this study.30 patients received a total of 133 cycles of etoposide. Median age was 49 years [range, 19 to 75]. The median number of etoposide cycles was 4 [range, 1 to 12]. There were 5 partial responses [16.6%]. The mean response duration was 4.8 months [range, 3.5 to 6], median progression-free interval [PFI] was 7 months [range, 3 to 13], and median survival time was 12.5 months [range, 1.3 to 36].The major toxicity was leukopenia. One patient required red blood cell transfusions, and the main non-hematologic toxicity was nausea and vomiting. There were no treatment-related mortalities. Although etoposide appears to exhibit modest activity in recurrent ovarian cancer after platinum-based therapy, response and survival durations are short