Background/aim: Ovarian cancer is a disease with significant impact, because more than half of cases exhibit recurrence despite platinum therapy. The choice of drug for cases of recurrence remains controversial, but the current option is pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD).
Patients and methods: We retrospectively reviewed the use of PLD in patients with ovarian cancer refractory or resistant to platinum-based therapy at our Department. We also examined efficacy, predictive indices of efficacy, and adverse events as well.
Results: In this study of PLD monotherapy for 60 platinum-refractory/resistant recurrent ovarian cancers, there was a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 4 months, median overall survival (OS) of 11 months, and the disease control rate (DCR) was 71.7%. The treatment effect can be predicted by the reduction of CA125 level after 2 courses. Patients with an increase and decrease in CA125 after 2 cycles of PLD, respectively, had a median OS of 14.5 (2-60) and 8 (2-51) months and a median PFS of 6 (2-38) months and 3 (0-47) months.
Conclusion: PLD is clinically effective and useful because it provides a high DCR and is tolerable to adverse events. These findings can help support the use of PLD and guide physicians in their choice of treatment when encountering such cases.
Keywords: CA125; Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin; platinum refractory/resistant; recurrent ovarian cancer.
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