Prospective study of etoposide scheduling in combination chemotherapy for limited disease small cell lung carcinoma.

78 patients with limited disease small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) were entered into a prospective randomised study of two combination regimens (AVE-5 and AVE-1) that differed only in the scheduling of etoposide. Patients in the AVE-5 arm received etoposide intravenously 60 mg/m2 on day 1 and orally 120 mg/m2 on days 2-5 of each cycle. Patients in the AVE-1 arm received etoposide 300 mg/m2 intravenously on day 1. Patients in both arms received doxorubicin and vincristine on day 1 of each cycle. The complete (53% vs. 26%) and the overall (75% vs. 52%) response rates were significantly higher in the AVE-5 arm. Median survival was also increased from 11 to 14 months in this arm. Toxicity was low and similar in both groups. The daily administration of etoposide in low toxicity combination therapy for SCLC is important. This can be conveniently achieved by using etoposide orally.

Two high-performance liquid chromatographic determinations for mebendazole and its metabolites in human plasma using a rapid Sep Pak C18 extraction.

A rapid extraction procedure for mebendazole and its metabolites from plasma using Sep Pak C18 is described. This method eliminates the need for solvent extractions as such. Two reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic determinations for these extracts, one isocratic elution and the other gradient elution, using an analytical wavelength of 254 nm are also presented. The gradient elution system provides superior resolution of these compounds and consequently has improved determination limits. For mebendazole the determination limits are 20 ng/ml (isocratic system) and 10 ng/ml (gradient system).