Annals of Oncology 13:807, 2002
© 2002 European Society for Medical Oncology
Letters to the Editor |
Chemotherapy with gemcitabine in patients with gall-bladder carcinoma
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Theresienkrankenhaus Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany (E-mail: j.rudi@t-online.de)
In their interesting study, Gallardo et al. report on a phase II study of gemcitabine in patients with gall-bladder carcinoma [1]. Of 25 patients, nine went into partial remission. In the discussion, the authors mention two previous reports on two patients who responded to chemotherapy with gemcitabine. However, several additional reports have previously been published. In a pilot phase II study by Mezger et al., 13 patients with biliary tract cancer or gall-bladder carcinoma were treated with gemcitabine, but gemcitabine was of no significant benefit to survival [2]. In another study, five of 19 patients with biliary cancer had gall-bladder carcinomas. The overall response to treatment with gemcitabine was 37%, but the response of gall-bladder carcinoma was not reported [3]. In our recently reported series of five patients treated with gemcitabine for advanced gall-bladder carcinoma, three of five demonstrated a partial remission and stable disease was obtained in another patient [4]. Medial survival time in these patients was 10 months (range 5–14 months) from start of chemotherapy.
Thus, although it is concluded that gemcitabine may be an effective drug in the palliative treatment of advanced gall-bladder carcinoma, its efficiency warrants evaluation in larger studies.
J. Rudi
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Theresienkrankenhaus Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany (E-mail: j.rudi@t-online.de)
References
1.
Gallardo JO, Rubio B, Fodor M et al. A phase II study of gemcitabine in gall-bladder carcinoma. Ann Oncol 2001; 12: 1403–1406.
2. Mezger J, Sauerbruch T, Ko Y et al. Phase II trial of gemcitabine in gall-bladder and biliary tract carcinomas. Onkologie 1998; 21: 232–234.
3. Raderer M, Hejna MH, Valencak JB et al. Two consecutive phase II studies of 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin/mitomycin C and of gemcitabine in patients with advanced biliary cancer. Oncology 1999; 56: 177–180.[Web of Science][Medline]
4. Teufel A, Lehnert T, Stremmel W, Rudi J. Chemotherapy with gemcitabine in patients with advanced gall-bladder carcinoma. Z Gastroenterol 2000; 38: 909–912.[Web of Science][Medline]
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