Micturition symptoms in gynecologic cancer patients receiving paclitaxel and platinum-based chemotherapy regimen: a prospective study

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of paclitaxel and platinum-based chemotherapy (PT) on micturition symptoms. METHODS: All gynecologic cancer patients who were assigned to receive the PT regimen and understood the Thai language were invited to participate in this study. The exclusion criteria were as follows: abnormal urinary symptoms, retained urinary catheter or percutaneous nephrostomy, anticholinergic drug use, or scheduled to receive radiation therapy after the completion of chemotherapy. The participants were interviewed using three Thai validated questionnaires, the incontinence impact questionnaire-short form, urogenital distress inventory short form, and Sandvik score, on the day before receiving the first cycle of chemotherapy (pre-treatment), on the day before receiving the 4th cycle (mid-treatment), and 46 weeks after completing 69 cycles (post-treatment). The scores at the three time points were compared. Patients who received less than three cycles were not included in the analysis. RESULTS: One hundred and ten patients were included in this study. There were significant differences in the median questionnaire scores at the three time points for both carboplatin plus paclitaxel and cisplatin plus paclitaxel. However, when using a pairwise difference between the two treatment protocols, there were no significant changes in the score from pre-treatment to post-treatment. CONCLUSION: The PT regimen has an impact on micturition symptoms during chemotherapy which recover after treatment completion.