Serum Chlorine Level as a Possible Predictive Factor for Oxaliplatin-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy is a major adverse event associated with oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy and is a major dose-limiting adverse event in clinical practice. However, some patients treated with oxaliplatin may show no or minimal peripheral neuropathy. These differences are still poorly understood. The data on patients with colorectal cancer who received oxaliplatin-based regimens between January 2005 and June 2010 at South Miyagi Medical Center were retrospectively retrieved from the medical records. We selected 51 patients, and factor analysis was performed. The serum chlorine (Cl) level at baseline was significantly higher in patients with a high frequency of peripheral neuropathy (106; range 104 - 107 vs. 104; range 101 - 104 mEq/L, p = 0.02). Principal component analysis showed the variables Cl, body mass index, status of liver metastasis, and status of lymph node metastasis were related to the incidence of peripheral neuropathy. Discriminant analysis showed the model had predicted 72.5% of peripheral neuropathy. An understanding of the patient’s characteristics could be useful for preventing or predicting oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy.