Update on gemcitabine chemotherapy at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO, 2002)

The efficacy of gemcitabine containing regimens has been explored in a large number of studies presented at ASCO 2002. The activity of gemcitabine-platinum based combinations was confirmed in lung cancer and bladder cancer. In pancreatic cancer, single agent gemcitabine remains the reference treatment, but newer combinations with oxaliplatin or docetaxel show promising activity in phase II trials and are currently being evaluated in phase III. Gemcitabine has demonstrated promising activity in phase II studies in metastatic breast cancer and gynaecologic tumors; phase III trials are ongoing. Concomitant chemo-radiation using gemcitabine as a radiosensitizer have been shown to be highly effective in pancreatic and in bladder cancer and deserve further investigation. The growing interest in gemcitabine-based combinations in various tumor types together with the results presented at ASCO 2002 confirm the broad range of activity of this drug. This is a review of papers presented at ASCO 2002.