Abstract
The pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of prolonged oral etoposide chemotherapy were investigated in 15 women with metastatic breast cancer who received oral etoposide 100 mg as a single daily dose for up to 15 days. There was considerable interpatient variability in the day 1 pharmacokinetic parameters: area under the plasma concentration time curve (AUC) (0–24 h) 1.95±0.87 mg/ml per min (mean ± SD), apparent oral clearance 60.9±21.7 ml/min per 1.73 m2, peak plasma concentration 5.6±2.5 μg/ml, time to peak concentration 73±35 min and half-life 220±83 min. However, intrapatient variability in systemic exposure to etoposide was much less with repeated doses. The intrapatient coefficient of variation (CV) of AUC for day 8 relative to day 1 was 20% and for day 15 relative to day 1 was 15%, compared to the day 1 interpatient CV of 45%. Neutropenia was the principal toxicity. Day 1 pharmacokinetic parameters were related to the percentage decrease in absolute neutrophil count using the sigmoidal Emax equation. A good fit was found between day 1 AUC and neutrophil toxicity (R 2=0.77). All patients who had a day 1 AUC>2.0 mg/ml per min had WHO grade III or IV neutropenia. The predictive performance of the models for neutrophil toxicity was better for AUC (percentage mean predictive error 5%, percentage root mean square error 18.1%) than apparent oral clearance, peak plasma concentration, or daily dose (mg/m2). A limited sampling strategy was developed to predict AUC using a linear regression model incorporating a patient effect. Data sets were divided into training and test sets. The AUC could be estimated using a model utilizing plasma etoposide concentration at only two time points, 4 h and 6 h after oral dosing (R 2=98.9%). The equation AUCpr=−0.376+0.631×C4h+0.336×C6h was validated on the test set with a relative mean predictive error of −0.88% and relative root mean square error of 6.4%. These results suggest monitoring of AUC to predict subsequent myelosuppression as a strategy for future trials with oral etoposide.
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Division of Haematology and Medical Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute, Locked Bag 1, A'Beckett St, Melbourne 3000, Australia
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Millward, M.J., Newell, D.R., Yuen, K. et al. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of prolonged oral etoposide in women with metastatic breast cancer. Cancer Chemother. Pharmacol. 37, 161–167 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00685644
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00685644