Clinical features of hypersensitivity reactions to oxaliplatin among Chinese patients with colorectal cancer

Oxaliplatin is a third­generation platinum antineoplastic agent. The 2­amino­cyclohexane­platinum DNA that oxaliplatin forms is more hydrophobic than that formed by cisplatin and carboplatin. 1 The renal toxicity of oxaliplatin is milder than cisplatin, while its bone marrow suppression action is weaker than carboplatin. Nervous system toxicity is the main dose­limiting side effect for oxaliplatin. Oxaliplatin is now widely used as a palliative chemotherapy for patients with advanced colorectal cancers (CRC) and as postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy for early CRC. In recent years, hypersensitivity reactions to oxaliplatin have caught much attention. However, the rate of hypersensitivity reactions is not consistent between published reports, that is, in reports published overseas, the rate of hypersensitivity reactions to oxaliplatin was 0.55% ­15% , whereas only occasional cases were reported in China. Therefore, we collected case information on 109 patients with recurrent and metastatic CRC who were receiving oxaliplatin + capecitabine (the XELOX regimen) as first­line palliative chemotherapy, and analyzed the incidence, the time of occurrence, and severity of hypersensitivity reactions to oxaliplatin, as well as clinical outcomes of these patients, providing a basis for the prevention and treatment of hypersensitivity reactions caused by oxaliplatin in patients with CRC in China.