Uncommon dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase mutations and toxicity by fluoropyrimidines: a lethal case with a new variant

DPD is the rate-limiting enzyme involved in the metabolism of 5-fluorouracil and its prodrugs, capecitabine and tegafur. Many cases of severe toxicities by fluoropyrimidines are reported in the literature, sometimes with lethal outcome, due to a poor or null metabolizer phenotype. The exon 14-skipping mutation IVS14+1G>A and the c.2846A>T are the most common deficient variants. However, many additional variants of the gene with unclear functional significance have been reported. We describe a patient with metastatic breast cancer who received capecitabine and trastuzumab at standard doses. Six days after beginning capecitabine, the patient developed fever, leucopenia and neutropenia, mucositis, hand-foot syndrome, multiple organ dysfunction and eventually died. Since the toxicity profile was compatible with capecitabine administration, complete exon sequencing of was carried out and the patient was found to be compound heterozygous for the rare mutation c.257C>T in exon 4, c.496A>G in exon 6, the new variant c.1850C>T in exon 14 and c.2194G>A in exon 18. Given the marginal role of c.496A>G and c.2194G>A in DPD deficiency, the cause of death was suggested to be dependent on the novel c.1850C>T in combination with c.257C>T. The complexity of DPD pharmacogenetics suggests the need to develop cost-effective screening approaches to identify patients at risk of severe toxicities.