Hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy with oxaliplatin and without adjuvant chemotherapy in stage IIIC ovarian cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the feasibility and efficacy of cytoreductive surgery (CRS) followed by hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) without adjuvant chemotherapy for relapsed or persistent advanced ovarian cancer. METHODS: This observational study included stage IIIC ovarian cancer patients due to undergo CRS (interval debulking or recurrent surgery) followed by HIPEC with oxaliplatin (460 mg/m2) for 30 min. RESULTS: Twenty-two patients (12 interval debulking procedures and 10 recurrence procedures) were enrolled between September 2003 and September 2007. HIPEC was not performed in four patients because of operative findings. No patient received adjuvant chemotherapy after HIPEC. Patients were followed up routinely until recurrence or death. Median peritoneal cancer index at surgery was 6 (range: 1-18). Before HIPEC, all patients had completeness of cytoreduction scores of 0 or 1. Median length of hospital stay was 21 days (range 13-65). Ten patients (55.6%) had CTCAE grade 3-4 toxicity, including three patients (16.7%) requiring reoperation. No postoperative mortality was observed. With a median follow-up of 38 months (CI 95% 23.8-39.2), median overall survival was not reached. The 3-year overall survival rate was 83% (CI 95% 54-95). Median disease-free survival was, respectively, 16.9 months (CI 95% 10.2-23.2) and 10 months (CI 95% 4.5-11.3) for patients undergoing interval debulking or recurrence surgery. CONCLUSION: HIPEC without adjuvant chemotherapy is both feasible and safe, but with a high rate of grade 3-5 toxicity. Survival results are encouraging but should be confirmed in a randomized trial.

[Aprepitant for the prevention of cisplatine induced nausea and vomiting: an observational study]. / Aprépitant pour la prévention des nausées et vomissements induits par une chimiothérapie à base de cisplatine: étude observationnelle.

Aprepitant is actually recommended in the prevention of nausea and vomiting induced by high emetic risk chemotherapy using cisplatin. We performed an observational prospective study on 101 patients evaluating the efficacy of aprepitant in the clinical conditions of use of cisplatin, out of context of clinical trial. We did not perform any intervention on the choice of anti-emetic treatment by the clinicians. Data on anti-emetic treatments were collected from prescriptions by a pharmacist after prior consultation with a medical doctor. Inclusions were closed when we lay 50 patients who received aprepitant associated to standard anti-emetic treatment (ondansetron and prednisolone) and 51 patients who received standard anti-emetic treatment. We observed a significant positive effect of aprepitant in the prevention of acute (84 vs 74.4 %, P = 0.24) and delayed vomiting (84 vs 60.8%, P = 0.009). But there was not a significant difference between the two groups regarding the prevention of nausea and the rate of complete response (absence of nausea and vomiting during five days).

Inflammatory breast cancer in Tunisia in the era of multimodality therapy.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to identify prognostic factors for outcome in Tunisian patients with nonmetastatic inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) receiving multimodality therapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From 1994 to 2000, 100 patients with nonmetastatic IBC were reviewed. Patients underwent neo-adjuvant chemotherapy including anthracyclines (99%), then mastectomy (93%) when feasible, radiotherapy (83%) and adjuvant chemotherapy (84%). Sixty patients (60%) had hormone therapy. RESULTS: Median age at diagnosis was 44 years (range 23-71). Seventy patients had premenopausal status (70%). Ten cases occurred during pregnancy (10%). Body mass index indicated overweight or obesity in 76 patients (76%). After neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, pathologic complete response (pCR) rate was 20%. Median time of follow-up for surviving patients was 44 months. Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 19 months and overall survival (OS) 30 months. Factors associated with improved survival were no pregnancy (P = 0.0095), estrogen receptor positivity (P = 0.028), tumor size <5 cm (P = 0.021), clinical complete response (cCR) (P = 0.022), pCR (P = 0.011), negative nodes (P = 0.053) and hormone therapy (P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, cCR, negative nodes and hormone therapy were independently associated with better OS and PFS. Factors predictive to pCR were age >45 years, negative nodes and cCR. CONCLUSIONS: Tunisian patients with IBC have particular epidemiologic characteristics, with earlier disease and context of overweight and obesity, but prognostic factors are similar to those reported in the literature. Hormone therapy seems to improve patient outcome.