Background: We retrospectively reviewed the outcomes of patients who had been treated with meloxicam for the extra-abdominal desmoid tumors and evaluated the correlation between clinical outcome and clinic pathological variables.
Methods: Twenty patients treated with meloxicam were followed up every 3 to 6 months. Meloxicam administration was planned at 15 mg/day orally for 6 months.
Results: Of the 20 patients evaluated, according to Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors criteria, there were five patients with partial response (25.0%), eight with stable disease (40.0%), and seven with tumor progression (35.0%). The cumulative probability of dropping out from our nonsurgical strategy using meloxicam was 35.0% at 1 year and 35.0% at 5 years.
Conclusions: The present study suggests that conservative treatment would be a primary treatment option for this perplexing disease even though we were not able to determine that the use of a cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor would have an additional influence on the natural course of a desmoid tumor.
Keywords: Extra-abdominal desmoid tumors; Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug.