Abstract
The chemotherapies of FOLFOX (leucovorin + 5-fluorouracil + oxaliplatin) and FOLFIRI (folinic acid + 5-fluorouracil + irinotecan) are effective for a variety of malignant tumors. In particular, the sequential chemotherapy of FOLFOX/FOLFIRI has become the preferred post-operational treatment approach for gastrointestinal cancer and an important palliative care program for advanced cancer. However, the sequential chemotherapy of FOLFOX/FOLFIRI showed severe side effects due to the fact that the toxicity of the drugs can be enhanced by each other. Here, we report the dynamic changes in the activities of serum ACTH, cortisol, renin, angiotensin, and aldosterone in patients following multiple cycles of FOLFOX/FOLFIRI sequential chemotherapy. We found that the sequential chemotherapy might cause damage to the activities of the endocrine cells and/or the sympathetic nerve, and alter endocrine function, specifically the ACTH–cortisol and renin–angiotensin–aldosterone axes.
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Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank Professor XT Cao for his scientific help in this work. Also, we acknowledge Dr L.F. Zhou for technical assistance. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (#30872380, #81072495), Program for Innovative Research Team in Zhejiang Province, China (#2010R50046), the Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang province, China (#2010C33006) and the Science and Technology Project of Hangzhou, China (20091233Q10). We acknowledge Siemens and Abbott for their pharmaceutical and industry support.
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Huang, C., Jiang, Y., Duan, G. et al. Effects of sequential chemotherapy of FOLFIRI/FOLFOX on the endocrine axes of ACTH–cortisol and renin–angiotensin–aldosterone. J Neurooncol 108, 485–490 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-012-0845-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-012-0845-0