Carboplatin combined with arsenic trioxide versus carboplatin combined with docetaxel neoadjuvant treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer: a randomized, open-label, phase II clinical study

Abstract

Abstract Objective. To compare the efficacy and safety of carboplatin combined with arsenic trioxide versus carboplatin combined with docetaxel neoadjuvant treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC). Methods. A total of 48 patients with LACC were enrolled in this study between May, 2019 and May, 2022 will be randomly assigned to either the experimental group (carboplatin combined with arsenic trioxide, n = 24) or the control group (carboplatin combined with docetaxel, n = 24). The clinical curative effect, adverse reaction and serological indicator of the two groupsof patients were established for the statistical analysis to clarify the efficacy and safety of carboplatin combined with arsenic trioxide versus carboplatin combined with docetaxel in improving the outcome of patients with LACC. Results. There was no statistical difference at baseline between the two groups (P>0.05). There was almost no significant difference of total effective rate between the two groups with 72.22% in the test group and 68.42% in the control group (P>0.05). Although the serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC) of the two groups were significantly reduced after chemotherapy (P<0.05) , the level of SCC in experimental group was slightly lower than that of the control group without significant difference (6.00 ± 11.36 ng/ml vs 8.42 ± 12.17 ng/ml, P>0.05). In addition,there was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative adverse reactions between the two groups (P>0.05). Conclusion. Arsenic trioxide combined with carboplatin as a preoperative NACT for LACC is not worse than docetaxel combined with carboplatin in terms of short term efficacy and safety during the treatment of LACC.