Response Assessment of 223Ra Treatment: Should a Fluorocholine PET/CT Be Performed?

We present 3 cases of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer and bone metastases treated with Ra, belonging to our prospective and multicenter ChoPET-Rad study. All patients underwent clinical, hematological, and biochemical monitoring between each Ra administration. Initial and follow-up F-fluorocholine PET/CT and Tc-biphosphonate bone scintigraphy were performed previously and after the third Ra administration. Both techniques correctly established the response to treatment, in agreement to the biochemical response, although differences in the disease expression (concordant and discordant patterns) were found because of the different radiotracer biodistribution and molecular information derived from them.

Safety and effectiveness of vinflunine in patients with metastatic transitional cell carcinoma of the urothelial tract after failure of one platinum-based systemic therapy in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Patients with transitional cell carcinoma of the urothelial tract (TCCU) who fail initial platinum-based chemotherapy for advanced disease represent a challenge in daily clinical practice. Vinflunine is approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) but, up to now, limited experience has been reported outside clinical trials. METHODS: We assessed the efficacy and safety of vinflunine in an unselected group of 102 consecutive patients with metastatic TCCU. RESULTS: The median age was 67 years (range 45-83). Among the most common comorbidities that patients presented at baseline were hypertension (50.5%) and diabetes (20.7%).Distant metastases were present in retroperitoneal nodes (58%), lung (29.3%), and bone (20.2%). The ECOG 0, 1 and 2 performance status at the start of vinflunine were 31.3%, 60.6% and 8.1%, respectively. The most commonly reported adverse events of any grade were constipation 70.6% (5.9% grade 3-4), vomiting 49.1% (2% grade 3-4), neutropenia 48.1% (12.8% grade 3-4) and abdominal pain 34.3% (4.9% grade 3-4). A median of 4 cycles of vinflunine was administered per patient (range 1-18). Median progression free and overall survival for all patients (N = 102) were 3.9 months (2.3-5.5) and 10 months (7.3-12.8), respectively. Time to tumor progression was 4.3 months (2.6-5.9). Two patients (2%) achieved CR, 23 (22.5%) patients had PR, and 42 (41.2%) presented SD as best response. The clinical benefit rate with vinflunine was 65.7%. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the behavior of vinflunine in routine clinical practice resembles that of the pivotal phase III randomized study.

An unusual metastatic renal cell carcinoma with maintained complete response to sunitinib treatment.

Recently, metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) treatment has changed dramatically with the onset of new therapies against molecular targets replacing immunotherapy as standard treatment. We report the case of a 49-year-old patient with a moderately differentiated renal clear cell carcinoma without extracapsular extension who underwent radical nephrectomy. Eight months after surgery, he developed a thyroid metastasis which was also treated surgically with a hemithyroidectomy. Seventy-five months after nephrectomy, the patient presented an upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to a duodenal metastasis that infiltrates the head of the pancreas. The treatment applied was surgery by duodenopancreatectomy, with positive surgical margins in the pathologic study. In addition to this, the extension study showed lung metastases requiring initiation of systemic treatment with sunitinib. The patient presented an excellent response to treatment, showing complete clinical and radiological response at 5 months of treatment (RECIST criteria) and a disease-free survival of 48 months until now, without evidence of toxicity. RCC has the potential to metastasize to almost any location, but thyroid and duodenal metastases in RCC are extremely rare. Moreover, this case also highlights the good responses that can be achieved in terms of disease-free survival, low toxicity and quality of life in this new era of therapies against molecular targets.

Triplet chemotherapy combination with gemcitabine, cisplatin and ifosfamide in patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer: phase II study.

A phase II study was conducted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the combination GIP (gemcitabine, ifosfamide, and cisplatin) for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Thirty patients with stage III B/IV NSCLC were treated with a combination of GIP. Patients received gemcitabine 1,000 mg/m2 administered intravenously on days 1 and 8, ifosfamide 3,500 mg/m2 on day 2, and cisplatin 80 mg/m2 on day 2, repeated every 21 days. Two of the 30 patients (7%) showed a complete response and 14 patients (46%) showed a partial response. The overall response rate was 53%. The estimated median survival for all patients was 60 weeks. All patients enrolled onto the study were eligible for toxicity assessment. Toxicities were treatable and included World Health Organization grade III or IV leukopenia (29%), thrombocytopenia (18%), anemia (7%) and nausea, and vomiting (6%). Febrile neutropenia occurred in 3 of 30 patients. There were no treatment-related deaths. The combination therapy of GIP is active, well tolerated, and easy to administer on an outpatient basis in advanced NSCLC.

Neoadjuvant gemcitabine therapy for breast cancer.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy has become a standard treatment in the management of locally advanced breast cancer. Patients with earlier-stage disease may also benefit from neoadjuvant treatment in terms of improved rates of breast-conserving surgery and thus better quality of life. Gemcitabine is a pyrimidine analogue that has shown activity in a variety of solid tumors, a good toxicity profile, and nonoverlapping toxicity with other chemotherapeutic agents. Several phase II/III studies are assessing gemcitabine combined with anthracyclines, taxanes, and/or vinorelbine both in the neoadjuvant and metastatic disease settings. This article reviews developments in neoadjuvant use of gemcitabine in combination with anthracyclines and taxanes. Several phase II trials of gemcitabine combined with doxorubicin/epirubicin or with doxorubicin/paclitaxel have been carried out. Preliminary findings demonstrate increased complete response rates and good tolerability of these regimens in patients with breast cancer.