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The “old drug” dacarbazine as a second/third line chemotherapy in advanced soft tissue sarcomas

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Summary

The aim of this study was to evaluate retrospectively the response rate, progression-free survival and median duration of response to dacarbazine as second/third-line chemotherapy for refractory soft tissue sarcomas. We studied 40 valuable patients with refractory soft tissue sarcomas and confirmed progressive disease (median age 54 years; range 24–73) treated between May 1997 and October 2005: 30 (75%) with metastases, and 23 (57.5%) with grade 3 disease. Dacarbazine was given as second-line chemotherapy to 29 patients (72.5%) every 21 days using three different schedules: dacarbazine 800 mg/m2 on day 1 (26 patients); dacarbazine 400 mg/m2 on days 1 and 2 (five patients); and dacarbazine 300 mg/m2 on days 1, 2 and 3 (nine patients). There were no complete responses, three (7.5%) partial responses and five (12.5%) cases of stable disease, for an overall disease control rate of 20%. Median progression-free survival was 2 months and median response duration 9 months. The 3- and 6-month progression-free rates were, respectively, 25% (SE 6.85%) and 20% (SE 6.32%). There were no cases of grade 3–4 hematological and non-hematological toxicity. In conclusion, our results suggest that second/third-line therapy with dacarbazine leads to satisfactory disease control in refractory soft tissue sarcomas; its activity seems to be comparable with other treatments, such as high dose ifosfamide or ecteinascidin-743, but it has a better toxicity profile.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, Via Manzoni, 56 Rozzano, Milan, 20089, Italy

    Paolo Andrea Zucali, Alexia Bertuzzi, Elisabetta Campagnoli & Armando Santoro

  2. Division of Medical Oncology, Azienda Ospedaliera Garibaldi, 95122, Nesima, Catania, Italy

    Hector Jose Soto Parra

  3. Department of General Surgery, Istituto Clinico Humanitas, 20089 Rozzano, Milano, Italy

    Vittorio Quagliuolo

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  1. Paolo Andrea Zucali
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  2. Alexia Bertuzzi
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Correspondence to Paolo Andrea Zucali.

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Zucali, P.A., Bertuzzi, A., Parra, H.J.S. et al. The “old drug” dacarbazine as a second/third line chemotherapy in advanced soft tissue sarcomas. Invest New Drugs 26, 175–181 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10637-007-9086-z

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