A Phase II study of gemcitabine and cisplatin in advanced biliary tract cancer

Abstract

BACKGROUNDThe authors performed a Phase II study of combination chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin in patients with inoperable biliary tract cancer to evaluate efficacy and toxicity of this combination. In addition, the correlation between the CA 19‐9 response and clinical outcome was analyzed.METHODSThe eligibility criteria for this study were 1) histologically or cytologically confirmed inoperable biliary tract cancer in patients with metastatic or recurrent disease; 2) age between 18 and 70 years; 3) at least 1 measurable lesion according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) criteria; 4) an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status ≤ 2; 5) a life expectancy of at least 3 mos; and 6) adequate bone marrow, hepatic, and renal function. The patients received gemcitabine (1250 mg/m2, Days 1 and 8) and cisplatin (60 mg/m2, Day 1) every 3 weeks. Tumor response was assessed by RECIST criteria every 2 cycles of chemotherapy. Treatment was continued until progression of disease was documented.RESULTSTwenty‐nine patients were enrolled. The median age of these patients was 52 years (range, 37 to 69 yrs), and the median ECOG performance status was 1. No complete response was observed, and 10 of 29 patients had partial responses. The overall response rate was 34.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.9–54.3) for the intent‐to‐treat analysis. Stable disease was observed in 4 (13.8%) patients and progressive disease in 13 (44.8%) patients. The median follow‐up time was 10.0 months (95% CI, 7.2–12.8). The median time to progression (TTP) was 3.0 months (95% CI, 2.12–3.88), and the median overall survival was 11 months (95% CI, 5.49–16.5). Although these results showed a better response rate (57.1 % vs. 27.3%) and survival (12 vs. 10 mos) in patients with a decline in CA 19‐9 of at least 25%, these data were statistically not significant. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between the increment in CA 19‐9 values and tumor progression as determined with RECIST criteria (r = 0.96, P < 0.01). However, there was no definite correlation between the CA 19‐9 response and the response according to RECIST criteria (P = 0.087). National Cancer Institute (NCI) common toxicity criteria (CTC) Grade 3 or 4 hematologic toxicities included neutropenia in 4 (14%) patients and anemia in 1 (3%) patient. Two of 4 patients with Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia had febrile episodes (7%) and required hospital admissions. NCI‐CTC Grade 3 or 4 nonhematologic toxicity included nausea in 1 (3%) patient. There were no treatment‐related deaths.CONCLUSIONThe combination chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin in inoperable biliary tract cancer was tolerable for most patients and showed modest response rates. The role of CA 19‐9 monitoring as a surrogate biomarker in patients with BTC treated with gemcitabine chemotherapy should be further investigated. Cancer 2006. © 2006 American Cancer Society.

Randomized phase II study of gemcitabine plus S‐1 versus S‐1 in advanced biliary tract cancer: A Japan Clinical Oncology Group trial (JCOG 0805)

“…(8,(14)(15)(16)(17) Another stratification factor used in this study was the clinical stage (II or III versus IV or recurrent). Locally advanced or metastatic cancer, the stratification factor used in the ABC-01 and ABC-02 studies, (7,18) has been shown to affect the OS of patients with advanced BTC.…”

Gemcitabine and oxaliplatin in advanced biliary tract carcinoma: a phase II study

“…Gemcitabine has shown promising activity against advanced BTCs, with response rates (RRs) in the range of 12 -35% when used in combination with agents such as 5-fluorouracil, cisplatin, mitomycin C, or capecitabine (Kornek et al, 2004;Alberts et al, 2005;Kim et al, 2006;Riechelmann et al, 2007;Lee et al, 2008). A recent randomised phase II study suggested that combination chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin may be more effective than gemcitabine alone (Valle et al, 2006).…”

Effect of histone deacetylase inhibitor on proliferation of biliary tract cancer cell lines

“…It was reported that HDACIs MS-275, NVP-LBH589 and NVP-LAQ824 can effectively inhibit the growth of human biliary tract cancer cells [26,27] . However, early diagnosis and treatment of biliary tract cancer are still difficult [29][30][31][32][33][34] . In order to improve its diagnosis and treatment, further study on its epidemiology, clinicopathology and molecular biology is needed.…”