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. 2017 Jul;24(4):244-245.
doi: 10.1136/ejhpharm-2016-001194. Epub 2017 May 4.

Oral etoposide in Merkel cell carcinoma

Tatiana Betancor  1 , Maria Micaela Viña  1 , Sara Ramos  1 , Miguel Angel Cabrera  2 , Francisco Javier Merino  1
Affiliations

Oral etoposide in Merkel cell carcinoma

Tatiana Betancor et al. Eur J Hosp Pharm. 2017 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a very infrequent and aggressive skin tumor with high recurrence and metastasis rates. MCC treatment is currently not well defined.

Case presentation: We present the case of a 75-year-old woman who was diagnosed with MCC in 2010 and suffered a third relapse in 2012 which could not be treated surgically.

Results: The patient began oral etoposide treatment reaching complete response after eight cycles and receiving a total of 11 cycles. As side effects, the patient suffered from neutropenia, candidiasis and mucositis, but after reducing the dosage to 50% it was well tolerated.

Discussion: Chemotherapy treatment in this setting is poorly defined. In this case, monotherapy treatment with oral etoposide was decided due to the patient's age and comorbidities, achieving a very positive outcome.

Keywords: bibliographic research; chemotheraphy; etoposide; merkel cell carcinoma; skin carcinoma.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None declared.

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