Beschreibung:
<jats:p> e15065 </jats:p><jats:p> Background: So far, the prognosis of advanced gastric cancer is dismal. Combination chemotherapy of docetaxel (D), cisplatin (C) and fluorouracil (F) showed activity in metastatic gastric cancer, but this regimen was complicated by a high incidence of myelotoxicity. We performed a multicenter phase II trial substituting C with oxaliplatin (O) and F with capecitabine (X) in chemotherapy-naive patients (pts) with gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma. Methods: Pts with measurable distant metastases received D 60 mg/mq iv, O 100 mg/mq iv on day 1 and X 500 mg/mq orally twice daily continuously, with cycles repeated every 3 weeks for a maximum of 8. G-CSF was used only as secondary prophylaxis. The primary endpoint was overall response rate (RR) according to RECIST. Toxicity was reported according to NCI-CTC v 3.0. Optimal Simon's two-stage design was employed with 6/15 responses required in the first stage to allow continuation to 46 pts. Results: 46 pts were enrolled: M/F 28/18; median age 66 years (32-75); median ECOG PS 1 (0-2); primary tumor resected/ unresected 16/30; disease location was gastric in 34 and GEJ in 12 pts; sites of disease were liver in 27, nodes in 25, peritoneum in 20, lung in 8 and bone in 5 pts. At the time of analysis all pts were evaluable for response and toxicity. In 46 pts, 3 CR and 21 PR were observed, for an overall RR of 52.1% (95% CI, 37.7%-66.5%). Responses were obtained in 15/27 pts (55%) with liver metastases. Disease remained stable in 14 pts (30.5 %). Median TTP was 6.8 months and median OS was 12.6 months. Grade 3/4 neutropenia, thrombocytopenia and anemia occurred in 41%, 4% and 9% of the pts, respectively. Febrile neutropenia was observed in 2 pts (4%). Other grade 3 toxicities included mucositis in 2 pts (4%), vomiting in 3 pts (6.5%) and diarrhea in 2 pt (4%). There were no severe neurotoxicity, nor treatment-related deaths. Conclusions: The DOX combination is an active and well tolerated novel chemotherapy regimen for treating metastatic gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma and deserves further evaluation in randomized trials and, hopefully, in neoadjuvant setting. </jats:p>