Comparison of gemcitabine plus cisplatin versus capecitabine plus cisplatin as first-line chemotherapy for advanced biliary tract cancer.

AIM: It remains unclear whether capecitabine combined with cisplatin would show similar effects compared with standard therapy using gemcitabine and cisplatin in advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC).

METHODS: Patients with advanced BTC who were treated with first-line chemotherapy at Asan Medical Center were retrospectively analyzed. All patients received either cisplatin followed by gemcitabine on days 1 and 8 every 3 weeks (GP group), or capecitabine on days 1-14 with cisplatin on day 1 every 3 weeks (XP group).

RESULTS: Of the 134 patients who met the inclusion criteria, 78 received XP and 56 were treated with GP. After a median follow-up of 26.2 months, the progression-free survival was 5.7 months for XP versus 4.1 months for GP (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.81, P = 0.31). The overall survival (OS) was 11.0 months for XP versus 9.8 months for GP (HR = 0.84, P = 0.36). In the multivariate analysis, there were no significant differences in PFS and OS between the two groups.

CONCLUSION: XP seems to be as effective as GP in patients with advanced BTC. The XP regimen is feasible and might offer increased convenience regarding the schedule of drug administration.