This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Glutathione failed to prevent chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Gluthathione did not reduce occurrence or time to development of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy among patients who underwent taxane and platinum-based chemotherapy, according to phase 3 study results.
The analysis included 185 patients treated with paclitaxel and carboplatin chemotherapy. Researchers assigned 94 patients to 1.5 g/m2 glutathione for 15 minutes prior to chemotherapy. The other 91 patients received placebo.
Overall, researchers observed no statistically significant differences in peripheral neurotoxicity between the study arms when assessed with the chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy-specific European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality-of-Life scale (P=.21).
The NCI Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events scale indicated grade ≥2 neurotoxicity was similar between groups (P=.449), and the time to development of grade ≥2 neuropathy was slightly improved in the placebo arm (P=.039).
When researchers limited their analysis to patients who received paclitaxel every 3 to 4 weeks, the degree of paclitaxel acute pain syndrome was comparable between those assigned to glutathione or placebo (P=.30). However, when they evaluated patients who received weekly paclitaxel, they observed a decreased degree of paclitaxel acute pain syndrome among those assigned to placebo (P=.002).
Time to disease progression (P=.63) and apparent toxicities did not significantly differ between the arms.
“Several studies have supported the potential benefit of glutathione for the prevention of platinum-induced chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy,” the researchers wrote. “The results from this study do not support the use of glutathione for the prevention of paclitaxel/carboplatin-induced chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy.”
Disclosure: See the study for a full list of the researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts