Timed sequential chemotherapy following drug-induced kinetic recruitment in refractory ovarian cancer

Kinetic recruitment of cancer cells can seldom be monitored in human solid tumors. Repeated tumor sampling in ascitic ovarian cancer has been exploited to study tumor cell kinetic recruitment following treatment with the alkylating agent iphosphamide (IFX). The treatment schedule of the study was designed to administer the antimetabolic agents MTX-5FU at the time of the recruitment peak. Kinetic studies by the labelling index (LI) assay could be performed during and after the IFX treatment in four out of eight patients because of sampling difficulties. Experimental results showed that the IFX effectiveness reduced the proliferating cells, followed by cell kinetic recruitment from the resting pool. The antimetabolic treatment in concomitance with the proliferative peak (day 12) has been reduced with respect to the original schedule due to the heavy leukopenia occurring to the patients. It is likely that the reduced drug dosage might have contributed to the poor clinical response. However, the recruited cells exhibited an increased in vitro chemosensitivity to adriamycin in comparison to tumor cells studied before the IFX treatment.