Addition of epirubicin to conventional chemotherapy in patients with advanced ovarian cancer: sequential therapy - a retrospective evaluation

Abstract

To evaluate the effectiveness of the addition of epirubicin to conventional chemotherapy as a first-line therapy for stage III-IV epithelial ovarian cancer. A total of 132 patients who had undergone primary cytoreductive surgery between January 1998 and March 2003 were enrolled in the study. Twenty-four cases were excluded. Out of the remaining 108 subjects, 35 received epirubicin/paclitaxel/ carboplatin (Group EPC) and 73 were treated with paclitaxel/platinum (cisplatin.or carboplatin) (Group PC). The median follow-up period was 66.5 months. The clinical complete response was 94% in the EPC group and 97% in the PC group. The recurrence rate in the first 6 months after treatment was significantly higher in the PC than the EPC group (47% vs. 23%, P = 0.018). Triplet chemotherapy was not found to improve 2- and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) statistically. No significant difference in overall survival was observed between the 2 groups (80% vs. 83% at 2 years and 56% vs. 57% at 5 years for the PC and the EPC group, respectively). The main toxicity in both groups was hematological, and it was particularly severe in the EPC group. The addition of epirubicin to the standard treatment protocol yielded an improvement in the DFS rate that was not statistically significant and caused a tolerable increase in toxicity.