Real-life Experience With Pegylated Interferon and Conventional Interferon in Adjuvant Melanoma Therapy
Real-life Experience With Pegylated Interferon and Conventional Interferon in Adjuvant Melanoma Therapy
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DOI：
10.1097/cji.0b013e31827809c7
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发表时间：
2013-01-01
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
Dummer, Reinhard
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Rozati, Sima;Naef, Lukas;Dummer, Reinhard
Interferon (IFN) is the most studied and the only approved adjuvant therapy for melanoma. There are 2 formulations of IFN, conventional IFN and pegylated IFN (peg-IFN), which have been investigated in multiple randomized clinical trials. We have compared the feasibility and tolerability of low-dose conventional IFN and peg-IFN in real life, outside the controlled settings of clinical trials. In this study, we analyzed 99 patients with resected melanoma, who were treated with either conventional IFN (n = 48) or with peg-IFN (n = 51), retrospectively. The median treatment duration in conventional IFN group was 13.3 versus 16.5 months in peg-IFN (P = 0.52). Moreover, patients with peg-IFN tended to have dose reduction or treatment discontinuation due to adverse events (AE) significantly more often. In addition, neutropenia occurred significantly more often in peg-IFN group versus IFN group (n = 2; 5% conventional vs. n = 16; 36.4% peg-IFN, P = 0.00). More than 90% of these patients developed only grade 2 neutropenia and there were no reported infections. We conclude that the 100 mu g flat dose peg-IFN, which is commonly referred to as "low-dose," actually represents a higher dose of IFN, which consequently results in more frequent dose reductions and discontinuation of treatment. The use of peg-IFN is certainly more convenient for the patient in terms of application, thus close monitoring, early medical interventions, and dose adjustments to avoid treatment discontinuation are crucial for compliance.
