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Capecitabine

In Advanced Gastric or Oesophagogastric Cancer

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Abstract

  • ▴ The oral fluoropyrimidine capecitabine is metabolised preferentially in tumour tissue to the cytotoxic moiety fluorouracil.

  • ▴ In a well designed phase III trial in patients with advanced gastric cancer, capecitabine plus cisplatin was noninferior to fluorouracil plus cisplatin in terms of progression-free survival (hazard ratio [HR] 0.81 [95% CI 0.63, 1.04]).

  • ▴ In another similarly designed phase III trial in patients with oesophagogastric cancer (REAL 2), pooled capecitabine-based regimens were noninferior to pooled fluorouracil-based regimens in terms of overall survival (HR 0.86 [95% CI 0.80, 0.99]).

  • ▴ These data are supported by randomised and noncomparative phase II trials in treatment-naive or pretreated patients with advanced gastric cancer or oesophagogastric cancer receiving capecitabine either as monotherapy or in combination with other antitumour agents.

  • ▴ Given the nature of chemotherapy, capecitabine-based regimens were generally well tolerated, with the nature of treatment-related adverse events occurring with capecitabine-based regimens being similar to those of fluorouracil-based regimens.

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Notes

  1. The use of trade names is for product identification purposes only and does not imply endorsement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wolters Kluwer Health / Adis, 41 Centorian Drive, Private Bag 65901, Malrangi Bay, Auckland, 1311, New Zealand

    Sohita Dhillon & Lesley J. Scott

  2. Wolters Kluwer Health, Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, USA

    Sohita Dhillon & Lesley J. Scott

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  1. Sohita Dhillon
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  2. Lesley J. Scott
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Correspondence to Sohita Dhillon.

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Dhillon, S., Scott, L.J. Capecitabine. Drugs 67, 601–610 (2007). https://doi.org/10.2165/00003495-200767040-00010

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.2165/00003495-200767040-00010

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