Gemcitabine plus carboplatin compared with carboplatin in patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer:: An intergroup trial of the AGO-OVAR, the NCICCTG, and the EORTC GCG

Purpose Most patients with advanced ovarian cancer develop recurrent disease. For those patients who recur at least 6 months after initial therapy, paclitaxel platinum has shown a modest survival advantage over platinum without paclitaxel; however, many patients develop clinically relevant neurotoxicity, frequently resulting in treatment discontinuation. Thus, an alternative regimen without significant neurotoxicity was evaluated by comparing gemcitabine plus carboplatin with single-agent carboplatin in platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer patients. Methods Patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer were randomly assigned to receive either gemcitabine plus carboplatin or carboplatin alone, every 21 days. The primary objective was to compare progression-free survival (PFS). Results Three hundred fifty-six patients ( 178 gemcitabine plus carboplatin; 178 carboplatin) were randomly assigned. Patients received a median of six cycles in both arms. With a median follow-up of 17 months, median PFS was 8.6 months (95% CI, 7.9 to 9.7 months) for gemcitabine plus carboplatin and 5.8 months ( 95% CI, 5.2 to 7.1 months) for carboplatin. The hazard ration (HR) for PFS was 0.72 ( 95% CI, 0.58 to 0.90; P =.0031). Response rate was 47.2% ( 95% CI, 39.9% to 54.5%) for gemcitabine plus carboplatin and 30.9% ( 95% CI, 24.1% to 37.7%) for carboplatin ( P =.0016). The HR for overall survival was 0.96 ( 95% CI, 0.75 to1.23; P =.7349). While myelosuppression was significantly more common in the combination, sequelae such as febrile neutropenia or infections were uncommon. No statistically significant differences in quality of life scores between arms were noted. Conclusion Gemcitabine plus carboplatin significantly improves PFS and response rate without worsening quality of life for patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer.