Purpose: Sequential chemotherapy with doxorubicin and gemcitabine (AG) followed by ifosfamide, paclitaxel, and cisplatin (ITP) was previously demonstrated to be well tolerated in patients with advanced transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). This study sought to evaluate the efficacy and to additionally define toxicity.
Patients and methods: Sixty patients with advanced TCC received AG every 2 weeks for five or six cycles followed by ITP every 21 days for four cycles. Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor was given between cycles.
Results: Myelosuppression was seen with 68% of patients who experienced grades 3 to 4 neutropenia and with 25% who experienced febrile neutropenia. Grade 3 or greater nonhematologic toxicities were infrequent. Forty (73%) of 55 evaluable patients (95% CI, 59% to 84%) demonstrated a major response (complete, n = 19; partial, n = 21) and had a median response duration of 11.3 months (range, 1.7 to >or= 105.6 months). Twenty-seven (79%) of 34 patients with locally advanced disease (ie, T4, N0, M0) or with regional lymph node involvement (ie, T3-4, N1, M0) and 10 (56%) of 18 patients with distant metastases achieved a major response. The median progression-free survival was 12.1 months (95% CI, 9.0 to 14.8 months), and the median overall survival was 16.4 months (95% CI, 14.0 to 22.5 months). At a median follow-up of 76.4 months, seven (11.7%) patients remain alive, and all were disease free.
Conclusion: AG plus ITP is an active regimen in previously untreated patients with advanced TCC; however, it is associated with toxicity and does not clearly offer a benefit compared with other nonsequential, cisplatin-based regimens.