[The study of cyclic maintenance chemotherapy with cisplatin, adriamycin, and cyclophosphamide (cyclic PAC chemotherapy) in patients with advanced ovarian cancer].

The efficacy of two methods of chemotherapy in the treatment of patients with advanced ovarian cancer was compared on the basis of survival curves; one consisted of remission induction therapy alone with a combination of cisplatin (CDDP), adriamycin (ADM) and cyclophosphamide (CPM) (induction PAC therapy), and the other consisted of induction PAC therapy and additional maintenance therapy with cyclic PAC (cyclic PAC therapy). The subjects of the study were patients with advanced ovarian cancer in stages III and IV. Sixty-eight patients received induction PAC therapy alone and seventeen patients received both induction and cyclic PAC therapy. Demographic factors such as age at initial presentation, the stage of cancer (III or IV), surgical procedure, histological classification, number of courses of induction PAC, response rate, site of residual tumor after surgery and induction PAC therapy, and reduction rate of CA125 were compared in the two groups. When analyzed by the chi 2 test, none of these factors was significantly different in the two groups. Patients in the induction PAC therapy group received a median total dosage of CDDP 360 mg, ADM 235mg, and CPM 2.246mg. Patients in the cyclic PAC therapy group received CDDP 592mg, ADM 490mg, and CPM 4.642mg. Thus, the dosage of anticancer agents administered to the latter group was about twice as great as that administered to the former group. According to the Kaplan-Meier method, survival rates for the induction PAC therapy group were 88.2% for one year, 50.0% for two years, 28.0% for three years, and 8.8% for five years. The median survival period was 23 months.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)