Drug Combination May Reverse Radiotherapy-Induced Uterine Damage

NEW YORK Jul 04, 2002 (Reuters Health) - Combined treatment with pentoxifylline and tocopherol reduces chronic uterine damage resulting from pelvic radiotherapy in childhood, results of a small phase II retrospective study suggest.

French physicians led by Dr. Hélène Letur-Könirsch of the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris in Paris treated six women who had been irradiated 25 years previously with a total dose of 28 to 65 Gy for abdominopelvic malignancies and had developed chronic radiotherapy-induced uterine fibroatrophy. All of the women, who ranged in age from 28 to 33, received pentoxifylline, 800 mg/day, plus tocopherol, 1000 IU/day, for 12 months.

Treatment was well tolerated and, after one year, all six women showed significant improvement in endometrial thickness, which doubled from </= 3 mm to >/= 6 mm, and in myometrial volume, which improved 1.5-fold.

These results, coupled with the significant improvement in diastolic uterine artery flow, suggests to the researchers that the combined treatment led to "partial tissular restitution and fibrosis reduction."

"The importance of endometrial thickness and echogenicity as a predictor of outcome in patients treated with in vitro fertilization procedures is well established," the team notes in the June issue of Fertility and Sterility.

"The restoration of satisfactory endometrial echogenicity and thickness, and the improvement in uterine vascularization, gives us reason to hope for increased chances of successful embryo implantation," they add.

SOURCE:

• Fertility and Sterility 2002;77:1219-1226.