Gemcitabine hydrochloride (GEM) is a standard anticancer agent for pancreatic cancer.However,gemcitabine chemotherapy is often prolonged or ceased due to hematological toxicity or other adverse events.In the package insert of GEM,gender differences in clearance and half-life are mentioned but there is little information on the clinical effects of these differences.In this study,we carried out a retrospective analysis of the relationship between gender differences and adverse events in GEM treatment in 60 patients (30 males and 30 females).Severe neutropenia (grade 3 or grade citation=4)was observed in 28 patients and statistical analysis revealed that its occurrence was significantly higher in females (19 of 30 patients) than in males (9 of 30 patients) (p=0.010 byχ2 test).Gender differences were not observed for other hematological toxicities.These results suggested that gender difference is a potentially useful factor for predicting neutropenia due to GEM treatment.
