PHASE II STUDY OF COMBINATION OF PEMETREXED (ALIMTA<sup>®</sup>) AND CISPLATIN AS FIRST-LINE TREATMENT OF STAGE IV STOMACH CANCER OR RECURRENT GASTRIC CANCER
The article is dedicated to the results of study which was aimed to evaluation the efficacy and safety of combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin (700 mg/m2 and 75 mg/m2, respectively) as the first-line therapy, and analysis of progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and duration of effect in 53 patients with generalized gastric adenocarcinoma (IV stage) or recurrent gastric cancer. Objective response rate was 32.1% and the rate of disease control - 58.5%. The median duration of effect was 3.8 months, median PFS - 3.7 and the median OS - 8.8 months. The most frequent III-IV grade drug-induced hematologic toxicity was neutropenia (54.7%); in other cases hematologic toxicity led to anemia, thrombocytopenia, alopecia and rash. Study has demonstrated moderate effectiveness and satisfactory safety profile of this treatment regimen. Rate of disease control, equal to 58.5%, indicates the effectiveness of combination at this stage of the disease in this patient population