Side Effects of Chronotherapy in Patients with Gastric Cancer

Yun, Uk Don; Choi, Seok Reyol; Jee, Sam Ryong; Park, Seong Wook; Lee, Tae Yeong; Lee, Jong Hun; Han, Sang Young

Abstract

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignancy in Korea. In many reports, it has been known that chemotherapy does not improve survival rate of patients with gastric cancer. However, some Japanese reports showed that chemotherapy was effective. Side effects of chemotherapy increase with escalating dosage of chemotherapy drugs. There are some reports that chronotherapy could reduce the side effects and improve the survival rate in patients with gastric or colorectal cancer. We studied the side effects of chronotherapy in patients with gastric cancer.
METHODS
Fourteen patients with previously untreated gastric cancer received chronomodulated 5-FU (900 mg/m2/day, day 1-5) and cisplatin (90 mg/m2, day 1). Thirteen patients of control group received 5-FU (600 mg/m2/day, day 1-5) and cisplatin (60 mg/m2, day 1) during the daytime. The side effects of the two groups were evaluated for nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, peripheral neuropathy, mucositis, leukopenia, anemia, thrombocytopenia, and serum creatinine.
RESULTS
Compared to the control group, chronotherapy-treated group showed statistically significant decrease in nausea and vomiting (p=0.037), but not in others.
CONCLUSIONS
Although only the incidence of nausea and vomiting was decreased significantly in the chronotherapy group, chronotherapy could be effective in reducing the side effects of chemotherapy in patients with gastric cancer considering that higher doses of drugs were used in the chronotherapy-treated group.