Cyclophosphamide "metronomic" chemotherapy for palliative treatment of a young patient with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer

Abstract

Background: Evaluation of the clinical efficacy and tolerance of metronomic chemotherapy as salvage therapy in a young patient with advanced, platinum resistant, ovarian carcinoma and bad performance status. Case presentation: We tried palliative chemotherapy with daily low dose oral cyclophosphamide with a patient suffering from stage IIIC ovarian cancer that responded to daily cyclophosphamide (CTX) after no response to chemotherapy with paclitaxel and carboplatin as first line and progression after second line with topotecan. The progression-free survival time on daily low dose oral cyclophosphamide treatment was 65 months without side effects. She was well during the chemotherapy and lived a normal working and social life. Conclusion: We think that use of low dose of oral CTX should be investigated further as a strategy against tumour progression after standard chemotherapy in patients who are platinum resistant with poor performance status. © 2007 Samaritani et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.