Second platinum therapy in patients with uterine cervical cancer previously treated with platinum chemotherapy

After the front-line platinum-based regimens including concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in patients with advanced or recurrent cervical cancer, platinum-based regimens are often used again.

We retrospectively studied the predictors of response to second platinum therapy and prognostic factors of survival of 65 women who had received ≥ 2 platinum-based regimens in order to evaluate the effects of platinum-free interval (PFI), i.e., the interval between the platinum therapies.

The median survival and PFI were 11.0 and 11.1 months, respectively. The response rate was 42% overall and 36% in the 36 patients who had received CCRT. The response rate increased in parallel with the length of the PFI. Multivariate analyses showed a PFI for ≥ 12 months (odds ratio [OR] = 0.20), a PS of 0 (OR = 0.16) and a maximum tumor diameter ≤ 30 mm (OR = 0.18) were predictive of response. Multivariate analyses also revealed a PFI for ≥ 6 months (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.44) and a PS of 0 (HR = 0.30) were prognostic of survival.

Our exploratory study demonstrated that PFI has both predictive and prognostic value for second platinum therapy in patients with advanced or recurrent cervical cancer.