RNOP-09: Pegylated liposomal doxorubicine and prolonged temozolomide in addition to radiotherapy in newly diagnosed glioblastoma - a phase II study

In this phase-I/II trial, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (Caelyx？, PEG-Dox) and prolonged administration of Temozolomide in addition to radiotherapy was investigated in 63 patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. In phase-I, PEG-Dox was administered in a 3-by-3 dose-escalation regimen. In phase-II, 20 mg/m2 PEG-Dox was given once prior to radiotherapy and on days 1 and 15 of each 28-day cycle starting 4 weeks after radiotherapy. Temozolomide was given in a dose of 75 mg/m2 daily during radiotherapy (60 Gy) and 150-200 mg/m2 on days 1-5 of each 28-day cycle for 12 cycles or until disease progression.The toxicity of the combination of PEG-Dox, prolonged administration of Temozolomide, and radiotherapy was tolerable. The progression free survival after 12 months (PFS-12) was 30.2%, the median overall survival was 17.6 months in all patients including the ones from Phase-I. None of the endpoints differed significantly from the EORTC26981/NCIC-CE.3 data in a post-hoc statistical comparison.Together, the investigated combination is tolerable and feasible. Neither the addition of PEG-Dox nor the prolonged administration of Temozolomide resulted in a meaningful improvement of the patient's outcome as compared to the EORTC26981/NCIC-CE.3 dataclinicaltrials.gov NCT00944801.Glioblastomas represent 40% of all tumors of the central nervous system (CNS) and are among the most lethal tumors. Therapy comprising debulking surgery and radiotherapy prolongs the median overall survival after initial diagnosis to only 8-12 months [1,2]. Temozolomide (Temodar？, TMZ) combined with radiotherapy was the first substance to significantly improve the overall survival (to 14.6 months) as compared to surgery and radiotherapy alone and increased the proportion of patients surviving more than 2 years to 26%. TMZ showed the best efficacy in patients with a methylated O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter by eliminating more sensitive differentiated tumor cells and in part stem