A 50-year-old woman with Stage IIB cervical squamous cell carcinoma is starting definitive chemoradiation. What is the standard cisplatin schedule used concurrently with external beam radiotherapy?

• A Cisplatin 75 mg/m2 every 3 weeks for 6 cycles
• B Cisplatin 20 mg/m2 daily for 5 days every month
• C Cisplatin 100 mg/m2 once before brachytherapy only
• D Cisplatin 40 mg/m2 weekly during external beam radiotherapy ✓

Explanation

The established radiosensitising regimen is single-agent cisplatin 40 mg/m2 intravenously once weekly during external beam radiotherapy, typically for 5 to 6 cycles, followed by brachytherapy. Three-weekly cisplatin at 75 mg/m2 is a metastatic-disease dosing schedule, not a radiosensitiser schedule. Daily low-dose cisplatin is not used. Indian exam convention follows this weekly 40 mg/m2 standard from the landmark concurrent chemoradiation trials.

Reference: Berek and Novak's Gynecology, 16th ed.

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