Comparison of two platinum-containing chemotherapy regimens in the treatment of advanced cervical cancer with concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

OBJECTIVE

The present study aims to compare the efficacy and side effects of a platinum-containing combination regimen and platinum single-drug concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in patients with advanced cervical cancer (CC) and to understand the prognostic factors in patients with CC.

METHODS

A total of 108 cases of CC treated in Wenzhou Central Hospital were retrospectively selected. Patients in the monotherapy (single-drug) group received external pelvic radiotherapy (RT) and platinum-based single-drug chemotherapy (CT). Patients in the combined group received external pelvic RT and platinum-containing CT. The efficacy, CCRT time, 3-year survival rate after treatment and side effects were compared between the two groups, and the prognostic factors were analysed.

RESULTS

The total effective rate was 74.07% in the monotherapy group and 72.22% in the combined group ( = .828). The incidences of myelosuppression, gastrointestinal reaction and abnormal liver function in the grades III-IV combined group were significantly higher than those in the monotherapy group ( < .001;  = .236;  = .022). Furthermore, the CCRT time was significantly longer in the combined group than in the monotherapy group, and the 3-year overall survival (OS) was 81.48% in the monotherapy group and 79.63% in the combined group ( = .643;  = .808). The older the age was, the higher the serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) value before treatment and the shorter the progression-free survival time. In addition, the older the adenocarcinoma (AC) was, the shorter the OS.

CONCLUSION

The efficacy of the two regimens in the treatment of advanced CC was similar. However, the side effects increased significantly during combined treatment.

PROGNOSTIC FACTORS

A higher patient age, having an AC and stage of IIIa and a high SCC-Ag value before treatment resulted in a relatively low survival rate.