Altretamine in advanced pretreated epithelial ovarian carcinoma patients: Experience from a center in north India

Abstract Background Altretamine has been approved for the treatment of ovarian cancer around four decades back. But still this agent is not used widely by medical oncologists in the view of controversial results reported in literature. Aim The aim of this study was to assess the anti-tumor activity (time to treatment failure) and toxicity profile of altretamine. Methods Patients of advanced ovarian carcinoma were included in this study that had undergone surgery, failed at least one chemotherapy regimen and completed at least one month of altretamine (150mg/m 2 /day for 14 consecutive days of a 28 day cycle with prophylactic anti-emetic agents). Results A total of 13 patients were evaluated. The median age at presentation was 55 years (46–83 years) and performance status ECOG I 8/13 (61.6%); ECOG II 2/13 (15.4%); ECOG III 3/13 (23.1%). 7.7% of patients (1/13) failed to respond to one chemotherapy regimen; 46.2% (6/13) to two CT regimen; 15.4% (2/13) to three CT regimen, and 30.8 (4/13) to four CT regimens. 0 patient showed complete response (CR), 2 partial response (PR), 7 had stable disease (SD). This led to overall disease control rate (CR+PR+SD) of 9/13 (69%) patients. The median time of treatment failure was 8.17 months (95% CI 6.87–9.47). In hematological toxicity only one patient (1/13) 7.7% had grade II anemia. No patient had significant neutropenia/thrombocytopenia. Conclusion Altretamine demonstrates meaningful prolongation of lifetime to disease progression in advanced pretreated carcinoma ovary patients with favorable toxicity profile.