A randomized phase III trial in patients with recurrent platinum sensitive ovarian cancer comparing efficacy and safety of paclitaxel micellar and Cremophor EL-paclitaxel.

OBJECTIVE: Paclitaxel micellar was developed to avoid Cremophor-EL (Cr-EL) associated dose limiting toxicity and to allow a shorter infusion time. The efficacy and safety of paclitaxel micellar (+carboplatin) was compared to Cr-EL paclitaxel (+carboplatin) in recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian, fallopian tube or peritoneal carcinoma. METHODS: This was a multicentre, open-label, randomized phase III trial. Adult patients with recurrent disease was assigned to six 3-week cycles of paclitaxel micellar (250 mg/m2) administered as 1-h infusion or Cr-EL paclitaxel (175 mg/m2) as 3-h infusion. Both arms received carboplatin (AUC 5-6). Primary objective was non-inferiority for progression free survival (PFS) using computed tomography scans. Overall survival (OS) was included as secondary endpoint. RESULTS: Between 2009 and 2013, 789 patients were randomized to receive experimental (N = 397) or control (N = 392) treatment. PFS for paclitaxel micellar was non-inferior to Cr-EL paclitaxel with a hazard ratio of 0.86 (95% CI: 0.72;1.03) in the per protocol population (PP), favouring paclitaxel micellar (non-inferiority margin was 1.2). Non-inferiority of OS was shown in the PP population with a hazard ratio of 0.95 (95% CI: 0.78; 1.16), favouring paclitaxel micellar (non-inferiority margin was 1.185). The most common adverse event was neutropenia (grade ≥ 3); 245 patients (79%) for paclitaxel micellar vs 213 patients (66%) for Cr-EL paclitaxel. The frequency of peripheral sensory neuropathy (any grade) was similar between the arms; 16% for paclitaxel micellar and 20% for Cr-EL paclitaxel. CONCLUSION: Paclitaxel micellar (+ carboplatin) is non-inferior to Cr-EL paclitaxel (+ carboplatin) in terms of PFS and OS in the studied population. It provides a treatment option of a higher paclitaxel dose with a shorter infusion time without mandatory premedication. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: 2008-002668-32 (EudraCT), NCT00989131 (ClinicalTrials.gov).

Analysis of HLA class I-II haplotype frequency and segregation in a cohort of patients with advanced stage ovarian cancer.

In solid tumors, human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-A2 has been suggested to be a risk factor and a negative prognostic factor. The HLA-A2 allele in Scandinavia has a high prevalence; it decreases with latitude and also with ovarian cancer mortality in Europe. Furthermore, an association of the HLA-A2 allele with severe prognosis in serous adenocarcinoma of the ovary in stages III-IV was found. Thirty-two unrelated Swedish women with relapsing or progressive ovarian cancer were analysed for the genotypes at the HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-Cw, and HLA-DRB1 loci by the polymerase chain reaction/sequence-specific primer method. The frequencies of HLA alleles of healthy Swedish bone marrow donors provided by the coordinating centre of the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide Registries, Leiden, the Netherlands were used as controls. When this cohort of epithelial ovarian cancer patients was compared with healthy Swedish donors, the frequency of HLA-A1 and HLA-A2 gene/phenotype appears, although not statistically significant, to be increased in patients with ovarian carcinoma, while HLA-A3 was decreased. HLA-A2 homozygotes were twofold higher in patients. The A2-B8 haplotype was significantly increased (corrected P value). A2-B5, A2-B15, A2-DRB1*03, A2-DRB1*04, A2-B15-Cw3, and A2-B8-DRB1*03 had odds ratio as well as the level of the lower confidence interval above 1 and significant P value only when considered as single, non-corrected analysis. HLA-B15 and HLA-Cw3 were only present in HLA-A2-positive patients showing that the HLA-A2-HLA-Cw3 and HLA-B15 haplotypes were segregated. In this selected cohort with advanced disease, there are indications of an unusual overrepresentation of HLA class I and II genes/haplotypes as well as segregation for the HLA-A2-HLA-Cw3 and HLA-B15 haplotypes. These findings are presented as a descriptive analysis and need further investigations on a larger series of ovarian cancer patients to establish prognostic associations.

Breast cancer risk in women with a primary ovarian cancer--a case-control study.

Register-based studies show that women with ovarian cancer are at increased risk of developing breast cancer. Primary suggested explanations are heredity factors and a common hormonal aetiology. However, clinical surveillance that is provided for cancer patients during, and after, treatment of their primary malignancies together with possible mistakes in the registering procedures could affect the risk estimates. In order to examine these factors in women registered with ovarian cancer who develop subsequent breast cancer, a case-control study was performed. Using a regional Swedish cancer registry including 5060 women registered with ovarian cancer, 89 cases of breast cancer were found. After corrections for discrepancies in the registered and recorded information, 75 cases remained, of which 72 cases were included in the study. Information concerning possible risk factors were extracted from hospital records and compared with 177 matched controls. Suggested risk factors such as parity (relative risk (RR)=1.41), late age at menopause (52-61 years; RR=1.61) and heredity for breast and/or ovarian cancer (RR=1.50) were all connected with a non-significant increased risk of subsequent breast cancer. In all, 43% of the breast cancer cases were revealed without preceding symptoms at clinical follow-up, indicating that increased clinical surveillance is a factor of importance when explaining the increased risk. The fact that only 75 (missing records included) out of the 89 registered breast cancer cases could be linked to the preceding ovarian cancer indicates that the actual risk of developing breast cancer is smaller than previously described. The clinical implications from these findings could be that, beside general screening programmes and health controls offered to women in cancer-prone families, additional mammography examinations based on the assumption of an increased risk of breast cancer are not warranted in ovarian cancer patients.

Treatment-associated leukemia following testicular cancer.

BACKGROUND: Men with testicular cancer are at an increased risk of leukemia, but the relationship to prior treatments is not well characterized. The purpose of our study was to describe the risk of leukemia following radiotherapy and chemotherapy for testicular cancer. METHODS: Within a population-based cohort of 18 567 patients diagnosed with testicular cancer (from 1970 through 1993), a case-control study of leukemia was undertaken. Radiation dose to active bone marrow and type and cumulative amount of cytotoxic drugs were compared between 36 men who developed leukemia and 106 matched control patients without leukemia. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the relative risk of leukemia associated with specific treatments. All P values are two-sided. RESULTS: Radiotherapy (mean dose to active bone marrow, 12.6 Gy) without chemotherapy was associated with a threefold elevated risk of leukemia. Risk increased with increasing dose of radiation to active bone marrow (P for trend =.02), with patients receiving radiotherapy to the chest as well as to the abdominal/pelvic fields accounting for much of the risk at higher doses. Radiation dose to active bone marrow and the cumulative dose of cisplatin (P for trend =.001) were both predictive of excess leukemia risk in a model adjusted for all treatment variables. The estimated relative risk of leukemia at a cumulative dose of 650 mg cisplatin, which is commonly administered in current testicular cancer treatment regimens, was 3.2 (95% confidence interval = 1.5-8.4); larger doses (1000 mg) were linked with statistically significant sixfold increased risks. CONCLUSIONS: Past treatments for testicular cancer are associated with an increased risk of leukemia, with evidence for dose-response relationships for both radiotherapy and cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Statistically nonsignificant excesses are estimated for current radiotherapy regimens limited to the abdomen and pelvis: Among 10 000 patients given a treatment dose of 25 Gy and followed for 15 years, an excess of nine leukemias is predicted; cisplatin-based chemotherapy (dose, 650 mg) might result in 16 cases of leukemia. The survival advantage provided by current radiotherapy and chemotherapy regimens for testicular cancer far exceeds the small absolute risk of leukemia.

Overestimated risk of second primary malignancies in ovarian cancer patients.

Registry-based cohort studies have established an increased risk of developing second primary malignancies (SPM) in patients with a primary ovarian cancer. In order to examine the accuracy of cancer registration with emphasis on registration of SPM, 344 women with ovarian cancer and 379 subsequent SPM, registered between 1958 and 1992 in the Stockholm-Gotland Cancer Registry (SGCR), a division of the Swedish Cancer Registry (SCR), were investigated. Complete records including pathology reports were examined and an additional histopathological evaluation was conducted for a sample of the group. The results revealed that 28 diagnoses of SPM were incorrectly registered (14 cases were misdiagnosed SPM of the gastrointestinal tract, mainly colon and rectum) and 34 women (with 38 SPM) were incorrectly registered with ovarian cancer. Recalculations of the risk of a subsequent cancer were performed on the basis of these findings and the results suggest an overestimation of the risk of developing SPM. Inferences of these findings to other primary sites of multiple malignancies should be made with caution and further studies are needed.

Risk of leukemia after platinum-based chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND: Platinum-based chemotherapy is the cornerstone of modern treatment for ovarian, testicular, and other cancers, but few investigations have quantified the late sequelae of such treatment. METHODS: We conducted a case-control study of secondary leukemia in a population-based cohort of 28,971 women in North America and Europe who had received a diagnosis of invasive ovarian cancer between 1980 and 1993. Leukemia developed after the administration of platinum-based therapy in 96 women. These women were matched to 272 control patients. The type, cumulative dose, and duration of chemotherapy and the dose of radiation delivered to active bone marrow were compared in the two groups. RESULTS: Among the women who received platinum-based combination chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, the relative risk of leukemia was 4.0 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.4 to 11.4). The relative risks for treatment with carboplatin and for treatment with cisplatin were 6.5 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.2 to 36.6) and 3.3 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.1 to 9.4), respectively. We found evidence of a dose-response relation, with relative risks reaching 7.6 at doses of 1000 mg or more of platinum (P for trend <0.001). Radiotherapy without chemotherapy (median dose, 18.4 Gy) did not increase the risk of leukemia. CONCLUSIONS: Platinum-based treatment of ovarian cancer increases the risk of secondary leukemia. Nevertheless, the substantial benefit that platinum-based treatment offers patients with advanced disease outweighs the relatively small excess risk of leukemia.

Risk of second malignant neoplasms among long-term survivors of testicular cancer.

BACKGROUND: We have quantified the site-specific risk of second malignant neoplasms among nearly 29,000 survivors (> or = 1 year) of testicular cancer, taking into account the histologic type of initial cancer and the primary therapy used to treat it. METHODS: The study cohort consisted of 28,843 men identified within 16 population-based tumor registries in North America and Europe; over 3300 men had survived more than 20 years. New invasive cancers were identified through a search of registry files. RESULTS: Second cancers were reported in 1406 men (observed-to-expected ratio [O/E] = 1.43; 95% confidence interval = 1.36-1.51), with statistically significant excesses noted for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (O/E = 5.20), acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (O/E = 3.07), melanoma (O/E = 1.69), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (O/E = 1.88), and cancers of the stomach (O/E = 1.95), colon (O/E = 1.27), rectum (O/E = 1.41), pancreas (O/E = 2.21), prostate (O/E = 1.26), kidney (O/E = 1.50), bladder (O/E = 2.02), thyroid (O/E = 2.92), and connective tissue (O/E = 3.16). Overall risk was similar after seminomas (O/E = 1.42) or nonseminomatous tumors (O/E = 1.50). Risk of solid tumors increased with time since the diagnosis of testicular cancer, yielding an O/E = 1.54 (O = 369) among 20-year survivors (two-sided P for trend = .00002). Secondary leukemia was associated with both radiotherapy and chemotherapy, whereas excess cancers of the stomach, bladder, and, possibly, pancreas were associated mainly with radiotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Men with testicular cancer continue to be at significantly elevated risk of second malignant neoplasms for more than two decades following initial diagnosis. Patterns of excess second cancers suggest that many factors may be involved, although the precise roles of treatment, natural history, diagnostic surveillance, and other influences are yet to be clarified.

Protein partitioning in weakly charged polymer-surfactant aqueous two-phase systems.

The study includes partitioning of proteins in aqueous two-phase systems consisting of the polymer dextran and the non-ionic surfactant C12E5 (pentaethylene glycol mono-n-dodecyl ether). In this system a micelle-enriched phase is in equilibrium with a polymer-enriched phase. Charges can be introduced into the micelles by the addition of charged surfactants. The charge of the mixed micelles is easily varied in sign and magnitude independently of pH, by the addition of different amounts of negatively charged surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), or positively charged surfactant dodecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride (DoTAC). A series of water-soluble model proteins (BSA, beta-lactoglobulin, myoglobin, cytochrome c and lysozyme), with different net charges at pH 7.1, have been partitioned in non-charged systems and in systems with charged mixed micelles or charged polymer (dextran sulphate). It is shown that partition coefficients for charged proteins in dextran-C12E5 systems can be strongly affected by addition of charged surfactants (SDS, DoTAC) or polymer (dextran sulphate) and that the effects are directly correlated to protein net charge.

Increased risk of second primary malignancies in patients with gynecological cancer. A Swedish record-linkage study.

The Stockholm-Gotland Cancer Register was used to study the risk of developing second primary malignancies (SPM) in women diagnosed with cancer of the uterine cervix, uterine corpus and ovaries during the period 1958-1992. Among 5,325 patients with uterine cervix cancer, 619 developed SPM. Standardized incidence ratio (SIR) was 1.29 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19-1.39). Significantly increased risks were observed for cancer of the colon, rectum, lung, vulva, kidney and bladder. A total of 4,815 women with uterine corpus cancer were followed and 660 SPM were found. The overall SIR was 1.21 (95% CI 1.12-1.30) with significantly increased risk for cancer of the colon, ovary, vulva and bladder. The incidence of leukemia was also significantly elevated (SIR = 3.03; 95% CI 1.70-5.00). Among 5,060 patients with ovarian cancer, 379 SPM were found (SIR 1.49; 95% CI 1.34-1.64). Increased risks of cancer of the colon, rectum, breast, uterine corpus, bladder and leukemia were observed. All three primary sites showed elevated risks of cancer of the colon and bladder. For patients with a primary cancer of the corpus and ovary an elevated risk of leukemia was also noted. The conclusion from these findings is that SPM to some extent can be explained by previously known factors, i.e. treatment and common risk factors. However, further studies concerning the role of common etiology, for instance hereditary and hormonal factors, are needed to increase the knowledge on the etiology of second primary malignancies.