Low-dose versus standard-dose gemcitabine infusion and cisplatin for patients with advanced bladder cancer: A randomized phase II trial: An update.

Abstract

4537 Background: Bladder carcinoma is still one of the foremost oncologic problems in Egypt. In previous single-arm and double-arm phase II studies, prolonged infusion of low dose gemcitabine and cisplatin proved to be an effective treatment for such patients with advanced disease. Methods: To compare efficacy and safety of both prolonged infusion and standard gemcitabine-cisplatin combination, we updated the data and duplicated the number of patients of our previously published phase II randomized study to 120 untreated patients with stage III/IV bladder cancer. Patients were randomized to receive either gemcitabine (250 mg/m2) 6-hour infusion on days 1 and 8, and cisplatin (70 mg/ m2) on day 2 every 21-day cycle (Arm1) or gemcitabine (1,250 mg/ m2) 30-min infusion on days 1 and 8, and cisplatin (70 mg/ m2) on day 2 every 21-day cycle (Arm 2). Results: The 92 males and 28 females had a median age of 62 years (range 40-85 years). A total of 87 patients had transitional cell, 28 had squamous cell, and 5 had undifferentiated cell carcinoma. Among the 105 evaluable patients (52patients in arm1 and 53patients in arm 2), complete response rate was achieved in 13.5% (7/52 patients of arm 1) and 5.7% (3/53 patients of arm 2). Eighteen patients in arm 1 (34.6%) and 17 patients (32.1%) in arm 2 had partial response on therapy. Thus the overall response rate of patients in arm1 and arm 2 was 48% (25/52 patients) and 37.7% (20/53patients), respectively (p = 0.26). No significant difference in median time to disease progression (26 months versus 24 months, p =0.4), median survival (12 months versus 16 months, p =0.8), and 1-year survival (49.9 % versus 54.7%, p = 0.8) was detected between arms 1 and 2, respectively. No treatment- related deaths occurred. Main hematologic and nonhematologic toxicities were similar in both arms with no statistically significant differences. Conclusions: In the treatment of advanced bladder cancer, gemcitabine in low dose and prolonged infusion in combination with cisplatin is not inferior to high-dose short infusion gemcitabine and cisplatin in terms of overall survival, time to disease progression, and response rates with favorable toxicity profile and less financial costs.