No abstract available.
Sarcoma, Kaposi* ; Vinblastine*

No abstract available.
Cyclophosphamide* ; Doxorubicin* ; Drug Therapy* ; Sarcoma* ; Vinblastine*

PURPOSE: We wanted to compare the efficacy and toxicity of chemotherapy with methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin, cisplatin(M-VAC) versus gemcitabine and cisplatin(GC) for patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty-nine patients diagnosed with advanced urothelial cell carcinoma and who were started on chemotherapy were divided into two groups. All of them had a 0-1 Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status. 19 patients received M-VAC chemotherapy and 30 patients received the GC regimen. Among them, the subjects who completed more than 3 cycles of their recommended formula (13/19 for M-VAC, 28/30 for GC) were included in this study. They were evaluated for their overall response rate, the 5-year survival rate, toxicities and the drop-out rate. RESULTS: The overall response rate and median survival period of the M-VAC and G-C groups were 38%(5/13 cases) and 46%(13/28 cases), and 16.7 months and 43.9 months, respectively. The 5-year survival rates in the two groups were 10% in the M-VAC group and 46% in the G-C treated group(p=0.013). The main hematologic complication was leukopenia and this occurred in 10/19 patients and more than grade 3 leukopenia was noted in 4/10 patients in the M-VAC group and in 19/30 patients and more than grade 3 was noted in 10/19 patients in the GC group.The common non-hematologic side effects between the two groups were nausea/vomiting(84.2% vs 47.7%), alopecia(47.4% vs 26.7%), diarrhea(15.8% vs 16.7%), and nephrotoxicity(15.8% vs 6.7%), respectively. The drop-out rates were 31.6% in the M-VAC group and 6.7% with the GC group. CONCLUSIONS: For patients with a good performance status with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma, GC chemotherapy is more effective and it has more tolerable toxicities than does the M-VAC regimen.
Doxorubicin ; Drug Therapy* ; Humans ; Leukopenia ; Methotrexate ; Survival Rate ; Vinblastine

We treated 11 patients with advanced transitional cell carcinoma of upper urinary tract with adjuvant M-VAC chemotherapy and their median survival time was compared with 9 patients without M-VAC chemotherapy as e historical group. The total number of cycles per each patient ranged from 1 to 5 with a mean of 3.4. Of these patients, 8 patients could be evaluated for response and 4 patients were responded (2 complete and 2 incomplete. response rate 50%). The median duration of response was 26 months for complete responders and 4.5 months for incomplete responders. The median duration of survival for all chemotherapy group, complete responders, progression and historical control group were 22, 23+, 14 and 21 months. respectively. Median survival was 22 months in all 11 patients. 23+ months in clinical responders, 14 months in progression and 21 months in historical control group. Although overall survival was not prolonged significantly in chemotherapy than the historical control group, M-VAC was effective in small proportion of patients (CR: 2/8). The duration of survival of the patients with complete remission was prolonged significantly.
Carcinoma, Transitional Cell* ; Doxorubicin* ; Drug Therapy* ; Humans ; Urinary Tract* ; Vinblastine*

PURPOSE: Breast cancer is heterogeneous disease and the response to chemotherapeutic agents is also heterogeneous from patient to patient. Chemotherapy response assay is in vitro test that is performed to evaluate the degree of tumor growth inhibition by chemotherapy drugs. In this study, we performed the chemotherapy response assay using adenosine triphosphate (ATP-CRA) in breast cancer patients and assessed the clinical availability. METHODS: Sixty five breast cancer patients were enrolled in this study. Cancer cells were evenly divided and treated with commonly used chemotherapeutic drugs in breast cancer (doxorubicin, epirubicin, 5-fluorouracil, paclitaxel, docetaxel, vinorelbine, and gemcitabine). To verify in vitro ATP-CRA indirectly, we analyzed the correlation between cell death rate (CDR) of doxorubicin and epirubicin, and between doxorubicin and paclitaxel. We also analyzed the mean CDR of doxorubicin, epirubicin and paclitaxel by HER2 status. RESULTS: We could successfully perform the ATP-CRA in 60 patients (95.2%). In all cases, we can get the results within 7 days. The range of CDR was very wide, from 0 to more than 50%, except gemcitabine. Epirubicin showed the highest mean CDR (39.9%) and doxorubicin, paclitaxel in order. According to the chemosensitivity index, paclitaxel is the most frequently first-ranked and doxorubicin, epirubicin in order. Correlation coefficient between the cell death rate of doxorubicin and epirubicin is 0.4210 and 0.1299 between paclitaxel and doxorubicin. In HER2 positive group, mean CDR of paclitaxel, epirubicin and doxorubicin was higher than in HER2 negative group, even though epirubicin and doxorubicin were not statistically significant (p=0.018, p=0.114, p=0.311, respectively). CONCLUSION: ATP-CRA showed heterogeneous results in individual patients. ATP-CRA was successful and can be performed within short time period. According to our in vitro study, it showed similar results with in vivo study but for the clinical use, the prospective randomized controlled trial should be preceded.
Adenosine Triphosphate ; Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Cell Death ; Deoxycytidine ; Doxorubicin ; Epirubicin ; Fluorouracil ; Humans ; Paclitaxel ; Polyphosphates ; Taxoids ; Vinblastine

Of the 11 advanced bladder cancer patients who received M-VAC (Methotrexate, Vinblastine, Doxorubicin and Cisplatin) combination chemotherapy, complete and partial remission were observed in 63.6%. Of the 17 advanced bladder cancer patients who received MAC (Methotrexate, Doxorubicin and Cisplatin) combination chemotherapy, complete and partial remissions were observed in 17%. Complete remission was achieved in 18.2% of the patients clinically, pathologically in M-VAC group and 5.9% in MAC group. Partial remission was occurred in 46.5% of the patients in M-VAC group and 41.2% in MAC group. All metastatic sites including the bone and liver, lung were well responded in M-VAC group, but poorly responded in MAC group. Toxicity was significant but tolerable.
Doxorubicin ; Drug Therapy, Combination* ; Humans ; Liver ; Lung ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms* ; Urinary Bladder* ; Vinblastine

Patients with advanced urothelial tumors that relapse or persist following conventional therapy have poor prognosis. Management of the patients with recurrent local or disseminated urothelial tumors presents a difficult clinical problems. In 1985 Sternberg et al reported 71% of significant tumor regression and 50% of complete clinical remission with M-VAC (methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin and Cisplatin) combination chemotherapy for treatment of advanced urothelial transitional cell carcinomas. Herein, we have experienced 13 cases of M-VAC combination chemotherapy in advanced urothelial tumors. Complete and partial remission was in achieved 46.2 per cent of the patients clinically, while 15.4 percent had a minor response and 38.4 per cent had progression with median survivals of 11.5, 8.5 and 7.4 months. Toxicity was significant. 15.4 per cent of the patients having experienced nadir sepsis, 30.8 per cent mucositis and 7.6 per cent cardiac toxicity. Median cycle length varied from 31.6 to 41.7 days for the first and 5th cycle respectively. This regimen has been efficacious in selected patients with advanced urothelial tumors.
Carcinoma, Transitional Cell ; Doxorubicin* ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Humans ; Mucositis ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Sepsis ; Vinblastine*

The major portion of Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients, even at an advanced stage can be cured with optimal initial treatment. ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) is the standard treatment regimen for the advanced stage HL, while Stanford V (doxorubicin, vinblastine, mechlorethamine, vincristine, bleomycin, etoposide, and prednisone) and escalated BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone) can be reasonable alternatives for selected patients. Although radiotherapy is the key component in Stanford V regimen, radiotherapy should be applied only at the residual lymphoma in patients who received ABVD and BEACOPP therapy. These three representative treatments for advanced HL have individual advantages and disadvantages, so that the choice of the initial treatment should be dependent on patients' relapse risk, comorbidity, and age.
Bleomycin ; Comorbidity ; Cyclophosphamide ; Doxorubicin ; Etoposide ; Hodgkin Disease ; Humans ; Lymphoma ; Mechlorethamine ; Procarbazine ; Recurrence ; Vinblastine ; Vincristine

PURPOSE: Our study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of adjuvant cyclophosphamide/vinorelbine/5-fluorourail (CVF) chemotherapy as an alternative to cyclophosphamide/methotrexate/5-fluorouracil (CMF) chemotherapy for treating early breast cancer. METHODS: One hundred and forty-nine patients were randomly assigned to CMF or CVF adjuvant chemotherapy for treating their early stage breast cancer between September 2000 and December 2007. The disease-free survival (DFS), the overall survival (OS), and the toxicity profiles of both groups were compared. RESULTS: Sixty-seven patients underwent CMF chemotherapy whereas 82 patients underwent CVF chemotherapy. The DFS and OS were 88 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 76-101 months) and 94 months (95% CI, 83-104 months), respectively for the CMF group, and 97 months (95% CI, 93-101 months), and 101 months (95% CI, 98-104 months), respectively for the CVF group. However, those survival gains of the CVF group were not statistically significant (p-value=0.069 for the DFS and 0.99 for the OS). The CVF group showed a favorable toxicity profile in terms of the grade 3/4 hematologic toxicities as compared to that of the CMF group. CONCLUSION: Clinical outcome of CVF chemotherapy was comparable to CMF with a favorable toxicity profiles. However, it is difficult to conclude the feasibility of CVF regimen because of small number of studied patients.
Breast ; Breast Neoplasms ; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant ; Cyclophosphamide ; Disease-Free Survival ; Fluorouracil ; Humans ; Methotrexate ; Vinblastine

Histopathologic study was performed to observe the effects of M-VAC (methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin and cisplatin), widely used for advanced bladder cancer and its metastatic lesion, on the visceral organs of the experimental animal. M-VAC was used intraperitoneally throughout the study and the following results were obtained : 1. There were severe adhesions of visceral organs in all of experimental groups, compared with the control group. 2. Compared with the control group(15.0%), significant increase of incidence in renal cystic changes in experimental group(89.6%) was observed. The lesions were similar to polycystic kidney type I and considered to be irreversible. Therefore, ultrasonography of the kidney during the M-VAC regimen may be clinically worthwhile. 3. Portal triaditis ( 27.5% ) and fatty metamorphosis of the liver(24.1%) were observed significantly in the experimental group but they were limited, localized changes and thought to be reversible. Deterioration in hepatic function may not be seriously considered.
Animals* ; Doxorubicin* ; Incidence ; Kidney ; Polycystic Kidney Diseases ; Ultrasonography ; Urinary Bladder Neoplasms ; Vinblastine*