Daily low-dose oral etoposide for recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer after platinum-based therapy

ABSTRACT

The activity and toxicity of etoposide in women with recurrent ovarian cancer are described from a case series of women with recurrent ovarian cancer. 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 april 2001, 12 patients were enrolled in this study. Ten patients received a total of 48 cycles of etoposide. Median age was 52 years [28 to 75]. The median number of etoposide cycles was 4 [1 to 11]. There were two partial responses. The responses lasted 3.5 and 6 months, median Progression Free Interval [PFI] was 7.5 months [5.5 to 11], and median survival time was 8.5 months [1.2 to 21.5]. The major toxicity was leukopenia. One patient required red blood cell transfusion, and the main nonhematologic toxicity was nausea and vomiting. Alopecia was universal. There was no treatment related mortality. Although etoposide appears to exhibit modest activity in recurrent ovarian cancer after platinum-based therapy, response and survival durations are short