抄録
Nineteen patients with lung cancer were given a combination treatment of etoposide and carboplatin: the former was administered orally once a day at a dosage of 50 mg/body/day for 21 consecutive days, and the latter was administered intravenously over a period of 1 hour in doses ranging from 300 to 400 mg/m2 on day 1. In addition, a pharmacokinetic study of etoposide on day 1 and an assessment of any side effects were performed. These patients were all classified by the experience of gastrectomy. In patients with gastrectomies (n=5), etoposide had to be discontinued after 13-17 days, due to the fact that the side effects such as vomiting, and hematological toxicity in patien ts with gastrectomies were more pronounoed than that of nongastrectomy group (n=14). Forthermore, in patients with gastrectomies, the maximum serum concentration (Cmax) of etoposide was significantly higher (p< 0.05) namely about 1.6 times, and the area under the curve from zero to ∞(AUC0-∞) was also significantly greater (p<0.05) namely about 1.7 times the values for the non-gastrectomy group (n=14).
These observations indicate that the extent of side effects in patients with gastrectomies appears to be correlated with the serum concentration of etoposide. Accordingly, when etoposide is orally administered in patients with gastrectomies, it may thus be necessary to determine the serum concentration of etoposide, as well as carefully monitoring any side effects, and as a result, it may be necessary to reduce the dosage of etoposide.
