Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0015672 (fatigue)
 51,768 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A total of 21 patients with advanced metastatic malignant melanoma were treated in this efficacy study of recombinant leukocyte A interferon (interferon alpha-2a). Patients received 18 X 10(6) units interferon alpha-2a by i.m. injection daily for the first 10 weeks and then three times weekly for a further 4 months. The symptoms of toxicity observed in this study resembled those previously reported for alpha interferons and included fever, chills, fatigue, anorexia, myalgia, headache, occasional nausea and vomiting, dose-dependent reversible leukopenia, and hepatic transaminase elevations. Of the 21 patients, 12 had evidence of tumor progression, 6 had stable disease for at least 2 months, and complete remission was seen in 3 patients with stage III melanoma. We conclude that interferon alpha-2a appears to have some antiproliferative effect in metastatic malignant melanoma. While its use in stage IV patients with big tumor masses is doubtful, there seems to be therapeutic benefit in earlier stages.
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PMID:Phase II trial of recombinant leukocyte A interferon in advanced malignant melanoma. 358 16

Gefitinib is an inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptor, which is frequently expressed on both choroidal and nonchoroidal melanoma cells. We evaluated the clinical efficacy of gefitinib in patients with metastatic melanoma. Patients with stage IV or unresectable stage III melanoma and Zubrod performance status of less than or equal to 2 were eligible. Previous systemic treatment for metastatic disease was required. The dose of oral gefitinib was 250 mg administered daily, and tumor response was evaluated every 6 weeks. Forty-six patients with nonchoroidal melanoma and six with choroidal melanoma were treated, and 48 were evaluable for response. The median age was 62.5 years. Forty-one patients (79%) had stage M1c disease. There were no drug-related grade 4 or 5 adverse events, and fatigue was the only grade 3 adverse event that occurred in more than 5% of patients. Two patients (4%) had partial responses and 13 patients (27%) had disease stabilization. The two responders had a median duration of response of 10.9 months. The median overall progression-free survival was 1.4 months and the median overall survival was 9.7 months. Among the patients with sufficient tissues obtained before and 6 weeks after starting gefitinib administration, there were no notable trends in the changes of the tumoral expression of p-ERK1/2, p-AKT, PAK1, and serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor or IL-8 with treatment. We concluded that gefitinib was well tolerated but had minimal clinical efficacy as a single-agent therapy for unselected patients with metastatic melanoma.
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PMID:A phase II study of gefitinib in patients with metastatic melanoma. 2173 4