DEBIRI and capecitabine in refractory prevalently liver metastases of colorectal cancer: A phase II study.

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

724 Background: Treatment options for metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) patients refractory to chemotherapy are limited and clinical outcome is poor. In mCRC patients with liver-dominant disease hepatic locoregional therapy might be a treatment option. In this pilot study we evaluated the safety, tolerance, and efficacy of drug-eluting beads irinotecan (DEBIRI) in combination with capecitabine in the treatment of patients with mCRC with predominally liver disease. Methods: Twenty patients affected by liver metastasis of colorectal cancer were included in this study. All patients had progression of disease after two or more lines of chemotherapy and liver was the major or the predominant site of disease. DEBIRI, beads loaded with 100 mg irinotecan, was administered biweekly via hepatic artery. All patients assumed capecitabine 1,000 mg/m2 twice daily on days 1 to 14 every 3 weeks, until disease progression. Primary endpoints were safety, tolerance and overall responce rate (ORR); secondary endpoints were progression free servival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Results: Twenty patients underwent a total of 54 DEBIRI treatments of the 66 planned; the median number was 3 (range 2-4) administrated for patients. Grade 1-2 toxic effects included fatigue (70%), diarrhea (45 %), anemia (45%), elevated liver enzymes (45%), nausea (40%), neutropenia (35%) and thrombocytopenia (25%). One grade 3 diarrhea and a case of acute vasospastic angina were observed and required patient hospitalization, but no deaths at 30 days post occurred. Two partial responses were reported (10%) with ORR of 60%. PFS and OS were 4 and 7, 3 months respectively. Univariate analysis showed that patients with KRAS wild-type, good ECOG performance status and single lobe metastases have a better prognosis. Multivariate analysis confirmed that only the good clinical conditions represent an important positive prognostic factor (p=0.03). Conclusions: DEBIRI with capecitabine seem to be a safe, technically feasible and well-tolerated treatment in chemotherapy refractory mCRC with prevalently liver metastases. It has a moderate but not negligible activity in this heavily treated group of patients and deserves further studies in a larger series.