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autologous blood and marrow transplantation - Blog Science ...

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424 Chapter 7: Solid Tumors<br />

<strong>and</strong> the study was approved by the Committee on Medical Ethics of the<br />

Netherl<strong>and</strong>s Cancer Institute.<br />

Treatment plan<br />

Therapy was started with two courses of FE, 20C (fluorouracil 500 mg/m 2<br />

,<br />

epirubicin 120 mg/m 2<br />

, <strong>and</strong> cyclophosphamide 500 mg/m 2<br />

, all given as intravenous<br />

push on day 0 <strong>and</strong> repeated on day 21). This is a relatively intensive anthracyclinebased<br />

regimen that we previously reported to be highly efficacious in locally<br />

advanced breast cancer. 8<br />

The second of these FE120C courses was used to mobilize<br />

stem cells (see below). In patients with at least a minimal response to<br />

chemotherapy, the first high-dose therapy course (tiny CTC) was begun 3 weeks<br />

later, to be followed by the second <strong>and</strong> third after 4-5 weeks each. After recovery<br />

from the last high-dose therapy course, resection or irradiation of residual disease<br />

was attempted <strong>and</strong>, when possible, prior sites of disease were irradiated.<br />

Delays <strong>and</strong> dose adaptations of the chemotherapy courses were executed as<br />

described previously for full-dose CTC. 7<br />

Evaluable patients who did not respond<br />

to a FE I 2 0C or tCTC course were taken off study.<br />

PBPC mobilization <strong>and</strong> harvest<br />

For stem cell mobilization, the FE, 20C chemotherapy regimen was used, all<br />

given as intravenous push on day 1. Filgrastim (5 pg/kg/d subcutaneously) was<br />

started on day 2. Leukaphereses began when the white <strong>blood</strong> cell (WBC) count<br />

exceeded 3.0X10 9<br />

/L <strong>and</strong> the CD34 +<br />

cell count in the peripheral <strong>blood</strong> was at least<br />

0.5%. To facilitate apheresis, all patients had 13.5 French double-lumen Hickman<br />

catheters. A continuous-flow <strong>blood</strong> cell separator was employed (Fenwal CS 3000;<br />

Baxter Deutschl<strong>and</strong> GmbH, Germany). Both the number of CD34 +<br />

cells <strong>and</strong> the<br />

number of granulocyte-macrophage colony-forming units (GM-CFU) were<br />

determined in the cell collections. All methods employed in the stem cell harvests<br />

have been described previously. 9<br />

Based on earlier findings, 10<br />

we considered a graft size of 3.0X10 6<br />

CD34 +<br />

cells/kg body weight sufficient for sustained bone <strong>marrow</strong> recovery <strong>and</strong> 1.0X10 6<br />

CD34 +<br />

cells/kg sufficient for rapid (but possibly transient) granulocyte recovery<br />

after high-dose therapy.<br />

High-dose chemotherapy regimen: tCTC<br />

The high-dose chemotherapy regimen tCTC was administered as published<br />

previously. 7<br />

Briefly, carboplatin was administered intravenously as daily 1-hour<br />

infusions on days -6, -5, -4, <strong>and</strong> -3. The total dose of carboplatin was 1060

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