I was not familiar with the term metronomic. I snagged this from NCI to help the rest of us learn what is is>
A New "Target" for Chemotherapy? Although not typically considered a "targeted therapy" along the lines of drugs like trastuzumab (Herceptin) or gefitinib (Iressa), most chemotherapy does have a general target: rapidly dividing cells. This description applies well to cancer cells but, unfortunately, also describes some healthy cells, such as those in the bone marrow or gut, which also draw chemotherapy's wrath.
But chemotherapy drugs also have another target: endothelial cells that form the lining of newly formed blood vessels, such as those whose creation is orchestrated by tumors to fuel their growth. There is a considerable body of evidence that even very low, nontoxic doses of chemotherapy drugs, when delivered frequently for a prolonged period of time, can retard tumor blood vessel growth (or angiogenesis) by destroying endothelial cells.
Treatment approaches along these lines are now being tested in clinical trials, and they've been coined metronomic chemotherapy.
"The definition of metronomic chemotherapy varies, but generally it refers to repetitive, low doses of chemotherapy drugs designed to minimize toxicity and target the endothelium or tumor stroma as opposed to targeting the tumor," says Dr. Harold J. Burstein of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who has led several early-stage trials of metronomic chemotherapy in women with breast cancer.
"It's definitely an interesting approach that opens up the possibility of using chemotherapy differently than we have traditionally considered," says Dr. Burstein.
The metronomic approach was initially proposed and tested in animal models by Dr. Timothy Browder in Dr. Judah Folkman's lab at Harvard Medical School. In the studies, standard maximum-tolerated dose (MTD) chemotherapy regimens caused cell death of endothelial cells in the blood vessels feeding to the tumor first, followed by tumor cells. But the long breaks needed between the MTD regimens allowed the damaged blood vessels, and thus the tumor, to recover.
But significantly lower doses given more frequently on a prolonged schedule proved to be far more effective, including complete tumor regressions, even in mice that were resistant to the same drug when used in a standard MTD regimen.
Since then, several research groups have confirmed these findings. And studies conducted in cell lines and animal models have also suggested that combining metronomic chemotherapy with targeted anti-angiogenesis agents is more effective than metronomic chemotherapy alone.
"I think the preclinical data together with the clinical trial results seen so far make a strong argument for testing metronomic chemotherapy more aggressively in larger trials, including trials where it's combined with different targeted agents," argues Dr. Robert Kerbel, of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, who has led many preclinical studies of metronomic chemotherapy.
A true metronomic regimen of frequent, low-dose chemotherapy over a longer period has yet to be tested in any phase III trials in the United States. A number of phase I and II trials have been conducted, however, yielding some provocative, if not altogether convincing, results.
Dr. Burstein presented data last December from a phase II clinical trial comparing a common metronomic regimen - a daily low dose of oral cyclophosphamide and a low dose of methotrexate twice a week - with or without the targeted anti-angiogenesis drug bevacizumab. The combination approach was superior to metronomic chemotherapy alone in delaying disease progression, but was not necessarily an improvement upon the results typically seen in similar patient populations treated with a standard MTD regimen.
Concerns about the toxic effects of conventional cancer treatments on pediatric patients also has prompted pediatric oncology researchers to investigate metronomic-like approaches to treatment. Some promising early results have been reported.
Based on the available clinical evidence, says Dr. Burstein, it's unclear in what setting metronomic chemotherapy might prove most useful.
"Those who are enthusiastic about it think it can be used anywhere," he says. "I think it's most likely to be used to treat more indolent, less threatening tumors because it may not work fast enough for those…with more aggressive disease."
Researchers like Dr. Kerbel, meanwhile, are making some headway on better understanding the nuts and bolts of metronomic chemotherapy, such as how to determine the lowest dose that can provide a potent benefit - the so-called optimal biological dose - and identifying biological markers that demonstrate whether the approach is having an anti-angiogenic effect.
Then there's this question: Can chemotherapy be delivered more frequently, even daily, at significantly higher doses than those used in most metronomic regimens but less than in MTD regimens? The toxicity might be greater than a "traditional" metronomic regimen, but so might the effectiveness, including in comparison with standard MTD regimens.
That's exactly what was shown in a phase III clinical trial presented earlier this month at the
ASCO annual meeting 
. In women with locally advanced or inflammatory breast cancer, a presurgical (or neoadjuvant), metronomic-like regimen - using higher doses of cyclophosphamide, given daily; doxorubicin; and growth factor support to ensure the continued production of white blood cells - was superior to a standard MTD regimen at eliminating evidence of invasive cancer at the time of surgery. This outcome, explains Dr. Robert Livingston, a co-investigator on the Southwest Oncology Group-led trial, generally has been found to predict superior long-term outcome in patients.
The idea, according to Dr. Livingston, is to try to expose tumor cells to minimum concentrations of chemotherapy drugs for as long as possible.
"I think it's fair to call the regimen we have developed a hybrid," he says. "It can destroy tumor cells and, at the same time, the continuous exposure, particularly to cyclophosphamide, is having an anti-angiogenic effect."
By Carmen Phillips
http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/ncica...6/062706/page4