A Phase II Clinical Trial of Chemotherapy With or Without Endostar® Continuous Intravenous Infusion in Refractory NPC

With the extension of survival time in nasopharyngeal carcinoma(NPC), more and more patients suffer from recurrence with radiation brain injury after radiotherapy, recurrence after the second or more courses of radiotherapy, standard treatment failure after recurrence, and first-line treatment failure after multiple distant metastasis. We define these four types as refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma[1-2] due to the complex and high risk of treatment and poor prognosis. For recurrence and metastasis NPC, the objective response rate ranges from 25% to 46.4% with platinum-based, or 5-Fu-based, or gemcitabine-based salvage chemotherapy[2--5].

At present, there is no standard treatment for refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Most patients in this trial were pretreated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Nedaplatin has the equivalent antitumor effect with cisplatin and less renal toxicity and gastrointestinal toxicity in the treatment of NPC[6]. In addition, nedaplatin does not have the cross tolerance with cisplatin. After cisplatin failure, nedaplatin(80-100 mg/m2) still work in NPC treatment[3].

5-Fu is a classic, effective, and safe chemotherapeutic drug in NPC treatment. Low dose continuous intravenous infusion of 5-Fu(300mg/m2/d, 6 weeks) is a effective regimen for recurrent and metastasis NPC with low toxicity[4].

Endostatin is a multiple targeted angiogenesis inhibitor acting on tumor associated neovascular endothelial cells, normalizing the morphology and function of tumor vasculature, and indirectly leading to the quiescence or reduction of tumors[7-9]. Anti-angiogenic therapy might optimally require that endothelial cells be exposed to steady blood levels of the inhibitor, and blood levels of certain angiogenesis inhibitors (such as endostatin) that are too high or too low will be ineffective[7,10]. Endostar® is recombinant human endostatin injection with better medicinal properties, stability and curative effect. Hoekman K. etc conducted a phase I clinical pharmacokinetic study in advanced cancer and the results showed that continuous intravenous pump of endostar® is safe[11]. Moreover, endostar® combined with chemotherapy can improve the outcome of the chemotherapy alone and does not increase the treatment related toxicity, such as in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer[12], advanced cervical cancer[13], advanced gastric cancer[14] and also metastasis NPC[15].

Given that the patients in this trial have the following features: had received standard radical treatment, poor tolerance of treatment due to the toxicity after many courses of chemotherapy, and the present treatment goal is palliative therapy. Therefore, the treatment principle in this trial is using low toxicity, well tolerance treatment regimen to relieve and control tumor, improve the quality of life, and further to prolong the survival time.

Based on above background and considering the Efficacy and tolerability, we use nedaplatin plus continuous low dose 5-Fu intravenous infusion as chemotherapy regimen, and administrate endostar® in continuous intravenous infusion.

This phase II randomized controlled trial is to investigate the efficacy and safety of nedaplatin plus continuous low dose 5-Fu intravenous infusion combined with endostar® (Recombinant Human Endostatin Injection) continuous intravenous infusion compared with nedaplatin plus continuous low dose 5-Fu intravenous infusion alone in refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma.