Original Guideline
The literature was searched using the MEDLINE (Ovid) (1966 through August 2002), CANCERLIT (Ovid) (1983 through July 2002), and Cochrane Library (Issue 3, 2002) databases. In addition, the Physician Data Query clinical trials database, and abstracts published in the conference proceedings from the meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (1995–2002), and the European Society for Medical Oncology (1998, 2000) were searched for reports of new or ongoing trials. The Canadian Medical Association Infobase and the National Guideline Clearinghouse databases were searched for relevant clinical practice guidelines. Relevant articles and abstracts were selected and reviewed by one member of the Systemic Treatment Disease Site Group (STDSG) and methodologists, and the reference lists from these sources were searched for additional trials.
The literature search combined the disease specific terms (sarcoma, kaposi/ or kaposi:.tw. and HIV/ or HIV.mp. or HIV infections/ or human immunodeficiency virus.tw. or AIDS/) with treatment specific terms (drug therapy/ or anthracyclines/ or anthracyclines.mp. or liposome:.and doxorubicin.mp. or liposome:.and daunorubicin.mp or doxil.tw. or caelyx.tw. or liposom:.mp. or daunoxome.tw.) with search specific terms for the following study designs: practice guidelines, systematic reviews or meta-analyses, reviews, randomized controlled trials, and clinical trials.
June 2004 Update
The original literature search has been updated using MEDLINE (September 2002 through June 2004), EMBASE (September 2002 through June 2004), the Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2004), the Physician Data Query database, the Canadian Medical Association Infobase, and the National Guideline Clearinghouse, as well as abstracts published in the proceedings of the meetings of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (2004), and the European Society for Medical Oncology (2002). Article bibliographies and personal files were also searched to June 2004 for evidence relevant to this practice guideline report. Please note that CANCERLIT is no longer included in update searches: results from an internal Practice Guidelines Initiative (PGI) project indicated that the overlap with MEDLINE is 100%, making CANCERLIT database searches redundant.
Inclusion Criteria
Articles were selected for inclusion in this systematic review of the evidence if they met the following criteria:
- Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing a liposomal anthracycline regimen to observation, placebo, or another chemotherapy regimen for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS)
- Reported data on outcomes of interest including survival, time-to-treatment-failure, response rates, adverse effects, and quality of life
- Trials reporting on patients with aggressive cutaneous or visceral HIV-positive KS
Exclusion Criteria
- Phase I and II studies were not considered, because of the availability of randomized controlled trials.
- Letters, editorials, and review articles were not included in this report.
- Papers published in a language other than English were not considered.
- Trials including only patients with non-aggressive cutaneous KS were not considered.