Adjuvant chemotherapy in early breast cancer.

Adjuvant chemotherapy in early breast cancer. Dan Med J. 2016 May;63(5) Authors: Ejlertsen B Abstract With long-term follow-up, the DBCG 77B trial demonstrates that oral single-agent cyclophosphamide significantly reduces the risk of recurrence and mortality as compared with no systemic therapy in pre-menopausal patients with high-risk early breast cancer. DBCG 77B is the only randomised trial assessing single-agent cyclophosphamide; and a second comparison suggests that its benefits are comparable to what may be achieved by classic CMF. The lack of benefits from adding methotrexate and fluorouracil to cyclophosphamide paved the way for combining cyclophosphamide with anthracyclines and later taxanes. DBCG 89D showed an incremental benefit in DFS and OS from substituting methotrexate with epirubicin. The advantage of anthracycline-containing three-drug combinations over CMF was confirmed by others and in the individual-patient EBCTCG meta-analysis, while standard AC or EC for four cycles not was superior to classic CMF. A further reduction in breast cancer mortality appeared in the EBCTCG meta-analysis from the addition of a taxane to a standard AC, while the substitution of cycles or drugs with a taxane was not associated with a reduction in mortality. No apparent benefit was observed in an early analysis of the DBCG 82C evaluating the addition of CMF to tamoxifen in post-menopausal high-risk breast cancer patients. Apart from menop...
Source: Danish Medical Journal - Category: Journals (General) Tags: Dan Med J Source Type: research