Predictors of the development of nab-paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy in breast cancer patients: post hoc analysis of a prospective, phase II, self-controlled clinical trial

In a previous study, we showed that cryotherapy and compression therapy have comparable efficacy in preventing nab-paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy. However, even with cryotherapy or compression therapy, there were patients with National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) version 4.0 grade ≥ 2 and/or Patient Neurotoxicity Questionnaire (PNQ) grade ≥ D peripheral neuropathies. Therefore, this post hoc analysis was performed to identify predictors of nab-paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy. The clinical data in this post hoc analysis were the data of 38 breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy with nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-PTX) at our outpatient chemotherapy center from August 2017 to March 2019. The number of patients was analyzed assuming that there were data for 76 hands. Variables related to the development of nab-PTX-induced peripheral neuropathy were used for regression analysis. Multivariate-ordered logistic regression analysis was performed to identify predictors for the development of nab-PTX-induced peripheral neuropathy. Significant factors included smoking history [odds ratio (OR) 4.64, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.60–13.5; P = 0.0048] with neuropathy evaluated by CTCAE, body mass index (BMI) (OR 1.13, 95% CI 1.01–1.26; P = 0.039) with neuropathy evaluated by PNQ (sensory), and smoking history (OR 3.80, 95% CI 1.40–10.30; P = 0.0087) and age (OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.01–1.11; P = 0.012) with neuropathy evaluated by PNQ (motor). In conclusion, smoking history, BMI and age were identified as significant predictors of the development of nab-PTX-induced-peripheral neuropathy.