Early breast cancer patients benefit more from longer course chemotherapy: a matched-pair analysis. (22nd March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wang, Yaohui; Yin, Wenjin; Lin, Yanping; Zhou, Liheng; Du, Yueyao; Yin, Kai; Lu, Jinsong
• Is Part Of: Future oncology. Volume 15:Number 15(2019)
• Page Start: 1781
• Page End: 1789
• Publication Date: 2019-03-22
• Subjects: breast neoplasms -- distant disease-free survival -- drug administration schedule -- epirubicin -- event-free survival -- sequential adjuvant chemotherapy -- taxane; Oncology -- Periodicals; 616.99405
• DOI: 10.2217/fon-2018-0666
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1479-6694

Abstract

Aim: Benefit of longer course of taxane-anthracycline-based adjuvant chemotherapy is yet to be identified.Patients & methods: We conducted a retrospectively matched-pair analysis to compare four cycles of fluorouracil, epirubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by four cycles of docetaxel (4FEC-4T) with three cycles of FEC followed by three cycles of docetaxel (3FEC-3T) as adjuvant chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer. One hundred and thirty-seven patients treated with 4FEC-4T were matched to 411 in 3FEC-3T. The primary end point was event-free survival (EFS). The secondary end point was distant disease-free survival (DDFS).Results: The 4FEC-4T resulted in significantly longer EFS than matched 3FEC-3T (p = 0.020). Furthermore, DDFS was superior in the 4FEC-4T to that in the 3FEC-3T (p = 0.046).Conclusion: Extending taxane-anthracycline-based regimens with identical schedules significantly improves EFS and DDFS for early-stage breast cancer.