Plasma concentrations of 5-fluorouracil and its metabolites in colon cancer patients.

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is a common anticancer agent used in the treatment of solid tumours, with a reported variability in the pharmacokinetic profile and inter-patient differences in efficacy and toxicity. Since 5-FU is intracellularly metabolised to active cytotoxic fluoronucleotides, some authors suggested it would be useful to determine the plasma levels of its main metabolites 5-fluoro-5,6-dihydrouracil (5-FUH2), 5-fluorouridine (5-FUrd) and 5-fluoro-2'-deoxyuridine (5-FdUrd), in order to better characterise population pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) of this drug. We developed and validated an HPLC method to simultaneously determine plasma concentrations of 5-FU and the three main metabolites, and we analysed the plasma concentration-time curves of the first dose of 18 colon cancer patients treated with folinic acid and 5-FU 400 mg m(-2) by intra-venous bolus injection as adjuvant chemotherapy.

Paclitaxel and carboplatin in neo-adjuvant and concomitant chemoradiotherapy in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Aim And Background: To evaluate feasibility of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NA-CT) followed by CT + radiotherapy (RT) in locally advanced or unresectable head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

Methods: 22 HNSCC patients were enrolled (18 males, 4 females; median age, 59.5 years; median ECOG PS, 1).