Efficacy of Vitamin E Treatment for Hand-Foot Syndrome in Patients Receiving Capecitabine

[摘要] Capecitabine is a novel oral fluoropyrimidine that is converted within tumor cells to fluorouracil by thymidine phosphorylase [1]. Hand-foot syndrome (HFS) is the most frequent side effect of capecitabine and has been reported in up to 71% of patients receiving a starting dose of 1,250 mg/m2 twice daily [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Grade 3 HFS was reported in up to 10–24% of patients. Treatment interruption and, if required, dose reduction usually ameliorate symptoms without compromising efficacy [8, 9]. Supportive treatments such as topical wound care, elevation, and cold compresses may help to relieve pain [10, 11]. Use of systemic corticosteroids, pyridoxine (vitamin B6), and cox-2 inhibitors have been used in patients developing HFS with cytotoxic agents including capecitabine and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin with varying success [11, 12, 13]. Kara et al. [13] from Turkey reported apparent benefit of vitamin E in managing HFS. Therefore we conducted this study to examine the efficacy of vitamin E in managing capecitabine-induced HFS.

[学科分类] 泌尿医学