Toxicity and effectiveness of carboplatin in obese or overweight patients

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the efficiency and toxicity of carboplatin using actual body weight in obese/overweight patients using the Calvert formula with Cockcroft–Gault for CrCl estimation.

Methods

We evaluated the association of BMI in regards to efficiency and toxicity in a retrospective cohort study of patients who started treatment with carboplatin between 2012 and 2013. Cohorts included obese/overweight patients and normal-weight patients. Efficiency was measured by overall survival, progression-free survival and response rate. Toxicity was measured by the proportion of dose reductions and delays of chemotherapy cycles. We utilized a bivariate and multivariate analysis.

Results

Eighty-six patients were included in the study (50% obese/overweight). There was not a statistically significant difference in effectiveness and toxicity between the two groups in BMI. In the multivariate analysis, BMI not was associated with overall survival (hazard ratio: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.54–1.66, p = 0.849), progression-free survival (hazard ratio: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.54–1.54; p = 0.732), cycle delays (odds ratio (OR): 1.47, 95% CI: 0.80–2.69, p = 0.218) or carboplatin dose reductions (OR: 0.87, 95% CI: 0.35–2.15, p = 0.760). Response rate was 53.5% in both groups.

Conclusions

In our study, obese and overweight cancer patients did not show a statistically significant difference in terms of effectiveness and toxicity compared to normal-weight cancer patients who were treated with carboplatin using their actual body weight with the Calvert formula and Cockcroft–Gault for CrCl estimation. Therefore, it was appropriate to use the actual body weight for our patients.