Concomitant radiation-doxorubicin administration in locally advanced and/or metastatic soft tissue sarcomas: preliminary results.

Doxorubicin was administered by continuous infusion at a dosage of 12 mg/sqm/day for 5 days concomitantly with radiation treatment (150 or 200 cGy/day for trunk or extremity lesions, respectively) for 5 days. The 5-day cycles were repeated every 3 weeks. Seventeen patients, 5 of whom were pretreated, entered the study; all were assessable for toxicity and 15 for response. The overall objective response rate was 46% (7/15): 1 complete and 6 partial responses. Response rate reached 54% in only non-pretreated patients (6/11) and 75% in patients with PS less than or = 2 (6/8). No disease progression was observed during treatment. The median duration of complete or partial responses was 28 weeks (range 5-86). Toxicity was low and treatment very well tolerated. In our preliminary analysis, the response rate obtained with this combined chemo-radiotherapic regimen was encouraging and the toxicity was acceptable.