Pemetrexed for previously treated patients with metastatic gastric cancer: a prospective phase II study

Abstract

Background:Gastric cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. There were debates on the value of the second-line and beyond chemotherapy by the time we designed this trial. So we designed this phase II trial to assess the efficacy and safety of pemetrexed in patients with pretreated metastatic gastric cancer.Methods:Thirty-four patients with pretreated metastatic gastric cancer were enroled in the study. Patients received pemetrexed 500 mg m−2 every 21 days until the presence of progressive disease (PD) or unacceptable toxicity.Results:A total of 34 patients were enroled in the study; 34 were eligible for toxicity and 30 for response. The response rate was 13.3%, 13.3% patients achieved a partial response, 50.0% achieved stable disease and 36.7% had a PD as the best response. The median overall survival time and median progression-free survival time was 6.4 months (95% confidence interval (CI) 5.8–9.5 months) and 2.2 months (95% CI 2.0–5.5 months), respectively. Most haematologic and non-haematologic toxicity were grade 1/2. Grade 3/4 toxicity included fatigue, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, weight loss, anorexia and transaminase elevation.Conclusions:The monochemotherapy of pemetrexed is active and well tolerated when used in previously treated patients with metastatic gastric cancer.

Antitumor and antimetastatic effects of pemetrexed-loaded targeted nanoparticles in B16 bearing mice

“…Pemetrexed was an antifolate medicine with multiple enzyme targets and showed encouraging antitumor activity in many tumors, including non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, carcinoma of the cervix, head and neck cancer, ovarian cancer and gastric cancer (Argiris et al, 2011;Schneeweiss et al, 2011;Chambers et al, 2012;Amadori et al, 2013;Miller et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015). As the current platform can be universally applied to almost any malignant tumors, and was adaptable to load a wide range of anticancer drugs.…”

Embelin induces apoptosis of human gastric carcinoma through inhibition of p38 MAPK and NF-κB signaling pathways

“…Gastric cancer in China presents high morbidity and mortality rates, and most cases are diagnosed at the advanced stage. The incidence rate of gastric carcinoma in patients under the age of 30 increased from 1.7% in the 1970s to 3.3% at present in China (3).…”