Acetyl-L-carnitine undervalued in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy?

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of study characteristics and main results.

	Design	Therapy	ALC dose	Goal	Population (n)	Duration	Diagnostic tool for neuropathy used: Summary of main study results
[13]	CS	PAC/CIS	1 g 3x/day	Therapy	25	56 days	NCI-CTC: sensory: 60% improvement; motor 79% improvement TNS: improvement in 92% [74–99%] (p = 0.0003)
[14]	CS	PAC/CIS/PAC + CIS	1 g/day Intravenous	Therapy	27	14 days (median)	WHO-TGL: 73% ≥1 grade improvement; All CIS-treated patients ≥1 grade improvement
[15]	RCT	PAC/DOC	3 g/day	Prevention	409	168 days	FACT-NTX-T-score: significantly more neuropathy in ALC-group after 24 weeks
[16]	CCS	BDD	1.5 g 2x/day	Prevention	32	–	CTCAE and FACT-GOG-NTx: non-significant
[17]	RCT	SAG	1 g/3 days	Prevention	150	–	Overall OC + CRPC: effect of ALC is non-significant OC alone: incidence grade 3-4 neuropathy significantly lower in ALC-group
[18]*	RCT	PAC	1 g 3x/day	Prevention	40	56 days	After 2 and 3 cycles significantly less sensory and motor neuropathy in ALC-group
[19]*	RCT	–	3 g/day	Therapy	239	56 days	NCI-CTC: Decrease of neuropathy in 50.5% in ALC, 24.1% in placebo after 8 weeks (p < 0.001). Decrease of 51.6% in ALC, 23.1% in placebo after 12 weeks (p < 0.001)

ALC: acetyl-L-carnitine; BDD: bortezomib + doxorubicine + dexamethasone; CCS: case control study; CIS: cisplatin; CRPC: castration resistant prostate cancer; CS: case series, CTCAE: Common Toxicity Criteria for Adverse events; DOC: docetaxel; FACT-GOG-NTX: Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy –Gynecologic Oncology Group – Neurotoxicity; FACT-NTX-T: Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Neurotoxicity – taxane; NCI-CTC: National Cancer Institute – Common Toxicity Criteria; OC: ovarian cancer; PAC: paclitaxel; RCT: randomized controlled trial; SAG: sagopilone; TNS: Total Neuropathy Score; WHO-TGL: World Health Organization – Toxicity Grading List.

* : published as (conference)-abstract only.

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