Clinical Medicine Reviews in Women's Health

Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) is doxorubicin encapsulated in MPEG-DSPE coated liposomes. PLD shows good response rates and maintains long-lasting stable disease (SD) in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, and its clinical benefit is also high in platinum-resistant disease. PLD is considered the first option for platinum-resistant disease. A number of adverse events are associated with PLD. Hematotoxicity is generally milder than with topotecan or gemcitabine, especially in heavily pretreated patients, but PLD has characteristic nonhematotoxicities, such as palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia (PPE), stomatitis, mucositis, and other cutaneous reactions. As for platinum-sensitive disease, non-inferiority of PLD-carboplatin combination in terms of progression-free survival (PFS) and tolerance, but with different toxicity, compared to paclitaxel-carboplatin was reported. However, it may be too early to judge the utility of PLD in combination with other agents because only few studies have been conducted and provided results to evaluate the efficacy of these. Further prospective studies are necessary.