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Clinical Trial Summary

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. O6-benzylguanine may help carmustine kill more tumor cells by making tumor cells more sensitive to the drug. It is not yet known whether radiation therapy and carmustine are more effective with or without O6-benzylguanine.

PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of radiation therapy plus carmustine with or without O6-benzylguanine in treating patients who have newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme or gliosarcoma.


Clinical Trial Description

OBJECTIVES:

- Compare the overall survival, failure-free survival, and progression-free survival of patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme or gliosarcoma treated with radiotherapy and carmustine with or without O6-benzylguanine.

- Compare the frequency and severity of toxic effects of these regimens in these patients.

- Correlate the survival of these patients with the expression of O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized study. Patients are stratified according to age (under 50 vs 50 and over), prior surgery (biopsy only vs resection), and Zubrod performance status (0-1 vs 2). Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

- Arm I: Patients undergo radiotherapy daily 5 days a week over 7 weeks for a total of 34 fractions. Patients also receive chemotherapy comprising O6-benzylguanine IV over 1 hour followed 6 hours later by carmustine IV over 1 hour on day 1 of radiotherapy. Chemotherapy repeats every 6 weeks for a maximum of 7 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.

- Arm II: Patients undergo radiotherapy as in arm I. Patients receive carmustine IV as in arm I.

Patients are followed at week 48, every 4 months for 1 year, and then every 6 months for 4 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 375 patients will be accrued for this study within 5 years. ;


Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Open Label, Primary Purpose: Treatment


Related Conditions & MeSH terms


NCT number NCT00017147
Study type Interventional
Source Southwest Oncology Group
Contact
Status Completed
Phase Phase 3
Start date September 2001
Completion date November 2012