Bi-weekly versus tri-weekly chemotherapy regimens of Taxanes for advanced non-small cell lung cancer：a systematic review

Abstract:

Objective：To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of bi-weekly versus tri-weekly chemotherary regimens of Taxanes for non-small cell lung cancer（NSCLC）. Methods：Relevant randomized controlled trials（RCTs） of bi-weekly versus tri-weekly chemotherapy regimens of Taxanes for NSCLC from databases of PubMed，Embase，Cochrane Library，Web of Scinece，VIP，Wanfan－data and CNKI were searched. The retrieval time was from the building time of each database to July 25，2011. The articles fit the in－clusion criteria were selected and the information in the articles was extracted. The quality of these included studies in accordance with the quality evaluation criteria recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration was evaluated and then analyzed statistically by RevMan 5.0 software. Results：Eight RCTs and 624 patients were included. Meta analysis results suggested that the bi-weekly regi－men was more effective in decreasing the incidences of leukopenia（RR=0.49，95％CI：0.38-0.62，P＜0.01），nausea and vomiting（RR=0.60，95％CI：0.44-0.81，P＜0.01） and alopecia（RR=0.35，95％CI：0.16-0.77，P＜0.05） than tri-weekly regimen. There was no statisti－cal difference between bi-weekly regimen and tri-weekly regimen in effective rate（RR=1.09，95％CI：0.88-1.35，P=0.44）、1-year sur－vival rate（RR=1.16，95％CI：0.91-1.47，P=0.22） and liver toxicity（RR=0.26，95％CI：0.04-1.56，P=0.14）. Conclusions：The effec－tive rate and 1-year survival rate are similar between the two chemotherary regimens，but toxicity incidence of bi-weekly chemother－ary regimen is lower than that of tri-weekly chemotherary regimen.