Taxol as Salvage Therapy in Patients with Recurrent Ovarian Carcinoma After First Line Chemotherapy

Kim, Do Hyung; Noh, Sun Hwa; Kim, Dong Hwi; Park, Un Dong

Abstract

As salvage therapy for recurrent ovarian cancer, Taxol has been tried alone or combined with cisplatin, or carboplatin. Paclitaxel (Taxol) is an antineoplastic agent; isoloated from the back of the western yew which acts as an antimicrotubule agent. In our study, 28 patients were eligible and assessable, Taxol was administered at a dose of 175 mg/m2, infused over 3hr every 21 days. A total of 161 courses of Taxol were infused, and the median treatmemt cycle was 6.25 cycles (1 to 16 cycles). The overall response rate was 21.4%, but we found higher response rate in sensitive group to platinum combined therapy than resistant. The median survival duration was 10.2 months and the median duration of follow up was 25.0 months. The worst severe toxicity was grade 4 leukopenia and expirement with sepsis. 39% of patients experienced myalgia and 25% experienced nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. Other adverse effects were not important or considerable. Taxol has been shown to be the most useful agent in patients with advanced ovarian cancer who had shown sensitivity with platinum previously, and Taxol has yielded low response rate in platinum-resistant patients. Further more study is repuired about Taxol itself, its optimal dose, combinding use with other antitumor agent, and as first line therapy in the treatment of advanced ovarian carcinoma.