Kenya Hiura

Clinical pharmacology and toxicity of low daily administration of oral etoposide in advanced lung cancer patients.

In this study, pharmacokinetics, clinical effects, and toxicity of daily oral etoposide were studied in 12 patients with advanced lung cancers. Administration schedule was 25 mg/body everyday of a 4‐week cycle or 50 mg (25 mg twice)/body for 14 consecutive days of a 4‐week cycle. The pharmacokinetic parameters of both groups in serum were as follows: 1) mean peak plasma concentration of 0.91 ± 0.18 μg/mL (25 mg) and 1.24 ± 0.12 μg/mL (25 mg twice); 2) elimination half‐lives of 6.46 ± 1.09 hours (25 mg) and 3.64 ± 0.27 hours (25 mg twice); and 3) the area under the plasma concentration curve of 7.09 ± 1.26 μg · hr/mL (25 mg) and 8.67 ± 0.77 μg·hr/mL (25 mg twice). There was a significant difference between those two schedules in terms of the plasma concentration and the duration at a low concentration (> 1 μg/mL) of etoposide. Low daily administration of oral etoposide is shown to be well tolerated and easy on the patient. More studies are needed to study whether prolonged schedules of lower doses of etoposide could result in improved prognosis.

A Study of Neutrophil Functions in Patients with Chronic Respiratory Tract Diseases

We tested blood neutrophil functions in the patients with chronic respiratory tract diseases to study the mechanism of susceptibility to bacterial infections. Peripheral blood neutrophils were obtained from 15 healthy subjects and 14 patients including diffuse panbronchiolitis, bronchiectasis, chronic emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Seven patients suffered from the chronic P. aeruginosa infection. Firstly, neutrophil chemotaxis was determined by the method of Boyden Chamber assays using FMLP as a neutrophil chemoattractant. The number of migrated neutrophils were 239.2 +/- 65.6 cells/50 HPF in the patients group and 256.6 +/- 49.0 cells/50 HPF in the control group. Secondly, neutrophil phagocytosis against P. aeruginosa, E. coli and K. pneumoniae was determined by phagocytic activity (PA) and phagocytic index (PI). PA against each bacteria was 44.1 +/- 13.2% (P. aeruginosa), 44.8 +/- 12.3% (E. coli) and 35.8 +/- 13.6% (K. pneumoniae) in the patients group and 42.3 +/- 10.6% (P. aeruginosa), 43.0 +/- 11.9% (E. coli) and 36.3 +/- 16.0% (K. pneumoniae) in the control group. PI against each bacteria was 2.2 +/- 0.6 (P. aeruginosa), 2.1 +/- 0.3 (E. coli) and 2.6 +/- 0.9 (K. pneumoniae) in the patients group and 2.2 +/- 0.6 (P. aeruginosa), 2.2 +/- 0.4 (E. coli) and 2.5 +/- 0.6 (K. pneumoniae) in the control group. Thirdly, neutrophil bacteriocidal activity was determined by superoxide production and intracellular killing efficiency. Superoxide produced from OPZ-triggered neutrophils was 17.8 +/- 6.5 nmol/3.5 X 10(6) cells/20 min in the patients group and 20.2 +/- 5.8 nmol/3.5 X 10(6) cells/20 min in the control group, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)