(ChemotherapyAdvisor) – Weekly vinblastine appears to be a “reasonable alternative to radiation” for the treatment of children with recurrent or refractory low-grade glioma after failure of first-line chemotherapy, results of a Phase 2 trial published in Journal of Clinical Oncology online March 5 have found.
The study enrolled 51 patients who had experienced a previous treatment failure (chemotherapy and/or radiation) for incompletely resected or unresectable low-grade glioma. Fifty patients had previously received at least one prior regimen of chemotherapy and ten, radiation therapy. Median age was 7.2 years (range, 1.4 to 18.2 years). Vinblastine 6mg/m2 was administered weekly for one year until disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.
Of the 50 patients evaluable for response, 18 (36%) had a complete, partial, or minor response; 31 completed one year of treatment. At a median follow-up of 67 months, 23 patients had not experienced progression and three patients had died. Five-year overall survival was 93.2%. Toxicity was primarily hematologic; a few patients needed transfusions.
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Five-year progression-free survival among the patients treated with weekly vinblastine — 42.3% — was comparable to that observed with first-line chemotherapy in chemotherapy-naïve patients.
Abstract
