Use of amifostine in the treatment of recurrent solid tumours in children.
OBJECTIVE
Preclinical and clinical evaluation of amifostine (AMI) administration in conjunction with systemic chemotherapy supports its role as a cytoprotective agent of normal tissues without loss of impairing the antitumour effectiveness of chemotherapeutic agents. Since only a limited number of clinical studies has been performed using AMI in paediatric pts with malignancies we investigated the protective effect of AMI against carboplatin-induced myelotoxicity and nephrotoxicity in a paediatric group of patients.


RESULTS
AMI was administered in 18/28 paediatric patients with reccurent solid tumours along with ICE (ifosfamide, carboplatin, etoposide) chemotherapy. A significant (p<0.05) decrease in GFR was observed in the control group whereas it was maintained at pre-treatment levels in the AMI-treated group. Leukopenia and neutropenia were significantly (p<0.05) less in AMI-group. No protective effect of AMI was shown concerning thrombocytopenia.


CONCLUSIONS
AMI was generally well tolerated at the dose of 740 mg/m2. Side effects including nausea, vomiting, hypotension, flushing and rigors were moderate and reversible and the interruption of infusion was never required.
Sidi
V
V
Department of Pediatric Oncology, Hippokration General Hospital of Thessaloniki, and Department of Nuclear Medicine, Aristotle University School of Medicine, Thessaloniki, Greece. paedonc@ippokration.gr
Arsos
G
G
Papakonstantinou
E
E
Hatzipantelis
E
E
Fragandrea
I
I
Gombakis
N
N
Koliouskas
E
E