A. Stern

High-dose administration of anticancer agents is attractive both on theoretic and clinical grounds. Yet, high-dose regimens are usually used as salvage treatments, mainly as a consequence of their considerable hematologic toxicity. One pertinent example is represented by cyclophosphamide, an alkylating agent with a wide spectrum of marked antitumor activity. When used at doses up to 7 g/m2 (190 to 200 mg/kg) this drug does not cause myeloablation, but induces a severe, albeit transient, myelosuppression, which requires platelet transfusions in approximately 50% of treated patients, and is frequently complicated by infectious episodes, occasionally lethal. To accelerate hematopoietic recovery, we continuously infused for 14 consecutive days 5.5 micrograms/kg/d of the glycosylated human recombinant granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF) into 15 patients with breast cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with 7 g/m2 cyclophosphamide. This schedule was chosen having obtained the fastest hematopoietic recovery among four different options during an initial schedule-finding phase on 12 overall patients. Twenty-one comparable subjects with solid tumors served as controls. We report here that this relatively low, well-tolerated dose of rhGM-CSF reduces from 20 to 14 (median) and from 24 to 14, the number of days required to recover circulating granulocyte counts over 1,000 and 2,500/microL, respectively. The stimulatory effect was associated with a remarkable clinical benefit. In fact, treated patients experienced less infectious complications (7% v 24%) were eligible to receive chemotherapy earlier (median, by day +14 v day +20 for controls), and fewer required prophylactic platelet transfusions (13% v 43%). Our results show that even very high doses of cyclophosphamide can be administered with improved hematologic toxicity, tolerable morbidity, and reduced supportive care requirements. The increase in the therapeutic index made possible by rhGM-CSF infusion prompts the use of high-dose cyclophosphamide, and possibly of other agents with similar myelotoxic activity, early in the clinical course of chemotherapy-sensitive tumors.

Tetrabenazine (TBZ) is a catecholamine depletor used for the treatment of a variety of movement disorders. The purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of TBZ in a retrospective chart review in 3 tertiary care movement disorders centers over long-term treatment. Of 150 patients to whom TBZ was prescribed, 118 were followed up and assessed using the Clinical Global Impression of Change (CGIC), (-3 to +3), a composite grade from a patient and caregiver scale over variable periods. The patients had a variety of hyperkinetic movement disorders including dystonia (generalized and focal: axial, Meige syndrome, torticollis, blepharospasm, bruxism), Huntington disease (HD) or other choreas, tardive dyskinesia (TD) or akathisia, and Tourette syndrome. Mean patient age was 48.8 +/- 18.7 years; 48 were men (40.7%) with a mean disease duration of 93 months. The mean follow-up time was 22 months and the mean TBZ dose was 76.2 +/- 22.5 mg/d (median 75 mg, range 25-175 mg/d). The mean CGIC score was +1 (mild improvement). The group of patients who scored +3 on the CGIC (very good improvement) represented 18.6% (n = 22) of all patients. They had HD or other types of chorea 7.6% (n = 9), facial dystonia/dyskinesia (n = 7, 5.9%), 1 with TD, 2 with trunk dystonia, 2 with Tourette syndrome, and 1 with tardive akathisia. This group had the longest treatment duration and received a mean TBZ dose of 70.5 mg/d (median 75 mg/d) for a mean of 25.4 +/- 21.3 months. The report concludes that TBZ is a moderately effective treatment of a large variety of hyperkinetic movement disorders, with excellent effects in a subgroup with chorea and facial dystonia/dyskinesias.

PURPOSE: To assess the toxicity, efficacy, and applicability of high-dose therapy with bone marrow and/or peripheral-blood autotransplantation in high-risk, previously untreated patients with multiple myeloma. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Thirteen consecutive patients with high-labeling index (LI) multiple myeloma received a novel high-dose sequential (HDS) regimen consisting in the high-dose administration of cyclophosphamide (7 g/m2) followed by vincristine (1.4 mg/m2) plus methotrexate (8 g/m2 with leucovorin rescue), etoposide (2 g/m2) and, finally, total-body irradiation (TBI; 10 Gy) plus melphalan (120 mg/m2) with autografting of peripheral-blood hematopoietic progenitor cells. Recombinant human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (rhGM-CSF; 5 micrograms/kg/d) was continuously infused after cyclophosphamide and etoposide both to accelerate hematopoietic recovery and to expand/mobilize the hematopoietic progenitor-cell pool. RESULTS: Among 13 patients, 12 completed the program; 10 (or 77%) achieved a complete response and five are alive and disease-free after a median follow-up duration of 36 months (range, 24 to 52). The durations of both freedom from progression (FFP; median, 38 months) and overall survival (OS; median, 41 months) were significantly superior in the 13 HDS-treated patients as compared with 19 well-matched historical controls. CONCLUSION: HDS emerges as a highly effective, well-tolerated, and widely accessible regimen capable of imparting a survival benefit to patients with high-LI multiple myeloma. Larger studies using this or similar programs in standard-risk myeloma are clearly warranted.