Quality of life and safety profile of pemetrexed-platinum doublet in Indian adult chemo-naive NSCLC patients.

Abstract

e19118 Background: Pemetrexed in combination with cisplatin or carboplatin is commonly recommended for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC of adenocarcinoma histology. The present study explores the safety and the impact of this doublet on the quality of life in adult Indian NSCLC patients. Methods: Patients were enrolled from a single tertiary care cancer hospital in India. Patients were administered pemetrexed 500 mg/m2, cisplatin 75 mg/m2or carboplatin AUC 5 every 3 weekly. All patients received standard folate and Vitamin B12 supplementation. Premedication included dexamethasone, granisetron and ranitidine. Quality of Life (QoL) data was collected at baseline and at completion of 3 cycles using EORTC QLQ-C30 (version 3) and QLQ- LC13 questionnaires. Toxicity was graded using CTCAE v. 4.03. Results: Twenty seven patients were enrolled on the study since July 2012.Twenty received carboplatin and seven received cisplatin. Mean age of the participants was 54.7 years (SD=9.58) with stage (IV=25; III A/B=2) and ECOG performance status (0=1; 1=17; and 2=9). Pemetrexed–platinum doublet caused significant improvement in Global Health Status and dyspnea score at 3 cycles compared to baseline (Table). The treatment also caused marked improvement in the physical function, emotional function, cognitive function and insomnia scales, although not statistically significant (Table). No significant difference compared to baseline was observed for other parameters. Grade 3/4 toxicities include anemia (3), neutropenia (3), hyponatremia (6), vomiting), diarrhea, and dyspnea (1 each). Conclusions: Pemetrexed-platinum doublet was well tolerated and markedly improved the global health status and dyspnoea at the end of three cycles. A higher incidence of hyponatreemia was observed in our cohort that needs to be investigated further. [Table: see text]