A study to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of oral 5-fluorouracil and eniluracil after concurrent administration to patients with refractory solid tumours and varying degrees of renal impairment (FUMA1005).

Item does not contain fulltextBACKGROUND: Eniluracil is an inactivator of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase, the first enzyme in the catabolic pathway of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Concurrent administration of oral eniluracil with oral 5-FU not only increases the bioavailability of 5-FU, owing to elimination of first-pass metabolism, but can change the route of elimination of 5-FU from hepatic metabolism to renal excretion. An open-label study was performed to determine the effect of renal impairment on the pharmacokinetics of 5-FU in the presence of eniluracil. METHODS: Enrolled in the study were 17 patients with refractory solid tumours (Karnofsky performance status >/=70%; age 31-74 years; 12 male, 5 female). The patients were separated into two groups based upon creatinine clearance (CLCr): group A had "normal" renal function arbitrarily defined as CLCr >/=50 ml/min ( n=8), and group B had moderate renal impairment, i.e. CLCr 50 ml/min. The combination can also be given to patients with renal impairment using a test dose and pharmacokinetic measurements to predict the appropriate dose of 5-FU. It is expected that sufficient information will be available from this and other studies to allow accurate prediction of the appropriate 5-FU dose modifications required in patients with renal impairment