Clinical impact of pharmacokinetically-guided dose adaptation of 5-fluorouracil: results from a multicentric randomized trial in patients with locally advanced head and neck carcinomas.

A significant link between 5-fluorouracil (5FU) plasma concentration and its therapeutic activity has been demonstrated in colon and head and neck cancer patients for 5FU used as a continuous infusion. Dose adjustment based on pharmacokinetic follow-up has been proposed to decrease hematological and digestive toxicities, but the clinical impact of this approach has not yet been demonstrated. A randomized multicentric study was conducted to evaluate the clinical interest of 5FU dose adaptation guided by pharmacokinetics. One hundred twenty-two head and neck cancer patients were randomly assigned to receive induction chemotherapy with cisplatin (100 mg/m2, day 1) and 5FU (96-h continuous infusion), either at standard dose (St-arm; 4 g/m2) or at a dose adjusted according to the 5FU area under the curve (AUC0-48h; PK-arm). In total, 106 patients were evaluable for toxicity and response. In the PK-arm (n = 49), 5FU doses and area under the curve were significantly reduced during cycle 2 and cycle 3 (P < 0.001) as compared with the St-arm (n = 57). Grade 3-4 neutropenia and thrombopenia were significantly more frequent in the St-arm as compared with the PK-arm (17.5% versus 7.6%, respectively; P = 0.013). No grade 3-4 mucositis occurred in the PK-arm, whereas 5.1% was observed in the St-arm (P < 0.01). The objective response rate was comparable in the two treatment arms: 77.2% in the St-arm versus 81.7% in the PK-arm. The present study is the first to demonstrate, in a randomized design, the clinical interest of an individual 5FU dose adaptation based on pharmacokinetic survey, in terms of therapeutic index improvement.