Etoposide (VP-16-213) plus cis-diamminedichloroplatinum as salvage therapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer.

Twenty-two patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer were treated with etoposide and cis-platinum. Each had failed one to three regimens of combination chemotherapy including cis-platinum-based combinations. Prior total cis-platinum doses ranged from 50 to 1600 mg/m2 with a median of 440 mg/m2. One of 18 evaluable patients had a complete response lasting 8 months, 1 had a partial response lasting 3 months, 8 had stable disease for a mean of 5.6 months, and 8 had progressive disease. The 4 unevaluable patients had undetectable clinical disease for a mean of 6.7 months. Bone marrow suppression was seen in 4 of 22 patients; two of whom had serious sequelae. The poor objective response rate (9.1%) seen with this combination in patients heavily pretreated with cis-platinum is similar to that seen for single agent etoposide in patients pretreated with alkylating agents. The difficulty of obtaining a good objective response in the face of prior cis-platinum-based combination chemotherapy failure is again verified.