Conditions: Small Cell Lung Cancer
Keywords: lung cancer small cell lung cancer
Allocation:  | Intervention model: SEQUENTIAL
Enrollment: 8
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
The Phase I portion of the study is to assess the maximum tolerated dose of vorinostat when combined with carboplatin plus etoposide. The Phase II portion is to determine progression-free survival among patients with extensive disease small cell lung cancer receiving carboplatin plus etoposide with vorinostat.

Detailed description:
Vorinostat inhibits growth and induces apoptosis in various human carcinoma cells. Furthermore, it affects the expression of various genes that are necessary for proliferation of cancer cells. Vorinostat also appears to block angiogenic signaling. Pre-treating four human cancer cell lines (including a brain tumor line) with vorinostat increased the killing efficiency of etoposide, ellipticine, doxorubicin, or cisplatin, but not of the topoisomerase I inhibitor camptothecin 13. Topoisomerase II is a ubiquitous nuclear enzyme that is involved in DNA replication, transcription, chromosome segregation, and apoptosis. It is the target for several anti-cancer drugs including etoposide. Treatment with HDAC inhibitors induces expression of topoisomerase II in cancer cells and enhances the sensitivity to etoposide 14.

Early phase clinical trials have demonstrated single agent anti-cancer activity with vorinostat. In our study, combination of vorinostat with carboplatin and paclitaxel, demonstrated promising anticancer activity against NSCLC, including histological subsets of patients whose tumors demonstrated neuroendocrine differentiation 8. For all these reasons, vorinostat is a rational choice to combine with the regimen of carboplatin and etoposide for evaluation in patients with SCLC-ED.

Arms:
arm 1: Vorinostat 200 mg PO QD D1-14; Administer with Carbo 6 (AUC) D3; Etoposide 100 mg/m2 D1,2,3 "Vorinostat", "Carboplatin", "Etoposide"

Interventions: intervention 1: Vorinostat, Carboplatin, Etoposide
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Study originally a Phase I standard dose escalation of the study medication Vorinostat with sequential cohorts of 3-6 participants entered to 3 dose levels (200mg, 300mg, 400mg). Dose escalation stopped after participant 1 on dose level 2 due to recently published research identifying an appropriate dosing regimen. A set dose was then to be administered to all subsequent participants. This regimen (a "cycle") consisted of Vorinostat on Day 1 through Day 4, Carboplatin AUC 6 on Day 3, and Etoposide 100 mg/m2 on Day 3 through Day 5. Treatment cycles were repeated every 21 days (3 weeks) for 4 cycles total.

Protocol document: