Melodie Thomas, BSN, RN, OCN, CCRP

Despite nearly a decade of paclitaxel’scommercial availability,the best strategy formanaging several paclitaxel-relatedtoxicities including myalgia/arthralgiaremains to be elucidated. Mostavailable data in the treatment of myalgia/arthralgia have been anecdotal,reported in the form of case studiesor within the toxicity results of publishedpaclitaxel-containing clinicaltrials. Garrison et al have provided awell-written review summarizingwhat is currently known about theincidence and management of thisquality-of-life–impacting toxicity.

We evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of combination paclitaxel (Taxol) (via 1-hour infusion), carboplatin (Paraplatin), and oral etoposide (VePesid) in the first-line treatment of patients with small-cell lung cancer.