PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:~I. To test the hypothesis that treatment with multi-day methotrexate is inferior to treatment with pulse actinomycin-D (dactinomycin) in patients with low-risk gestational trophoblastic disease with respect to complete response.~SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:~I. To describe the frequency of post protocol surgical treatment for each arm. II. To describe the frequency of post protocol multi-agent chemotherapy treatment for each arm.~III. To compare multi-day methotrexate to actinomycin-D with respect to frequency and severity of adverse events in patients with low-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia.~IV. To investigate the impact of treatment on overall quality-of-life (QOL) and explore the influence of treatment on issues such as body image, sexual functioning, and patient-reported side effects and disruption.~V. To assess whether uterine artery pulsatility index (UAPI) can provide independent prognostic information predictive of single-drug resistance.~OUTLINE: Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.~ARM I: Patients receive dactinomycin intravenously (IV) over 15 minutes on day 1.~ARM II: Patients receive methotrexate intramuscularly (IM) on days 1, 3, 5, and 7 and leucovorin calcium orally (PO) on days 2, 4, 6, and 8 OR single agent methotrexate IV on days 1-5.~In both arms, treatment repeats every 14 days for up to 20 courses* in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity.~After completion of study treatment, patients are followed up monthly for 1 year and then every 3 months for 1 year.~NOTE: * Patients will be treated for three courses after human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) < 5 mIU/mL or until evidence of treatment failure (biologic progression), disease progression, or unacceptable toxicity despite dose modifications. Upon normalization of hCG (< 5 mIU/mL), patients will be treated with three additional courses.
This randomized phase III trial studies how well methotrexate works compared to dactinomycin in treating patients with low-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as methotrexate and dactinomycin, work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells, by stopping them from dividing, or by stopping them from spreading. It is not yet known whether methotrexate is more effective than dactinomycin in treating gestational trophoblastic disease.