Combination chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced breast cancer

✍ Scribed by Dutzu Rosner; Takuma Nemoto; Chief Thomas L. Dao

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1976
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 289 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0022-4790
• DOI: 10.1002/jso.2930080604

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Seventy‐two women with metastatic breast cancer were treated with multiple‐agent chemotherapy. Fifty women were treated with 5 drugs in combination: 5‐FU, methotrexate, vincristine, cytoxan, and prednisone; 22 were treated with the combination of 3 drugs: 5‐FU, cytoxan, and prednisone. In 14 patients receiving 5 drugs and in 22 receiving 3 drugs, the multiple chemotherapy was the primary palliative treatment of extensive visceral metastases unsuitable for adrenalectomy. Results were similar with 6 responders in 14 (0.43) receiving 5 drugs, and 10 responders in 22 (0.45) receiving 3 drugs. The remaining 36 patients who were given 5‐drug therapy all had previous adrenalectomy, and there were 16 responders (0.44).

Toxicities from 3‐drug treatment were substantially less severe than those from the 5‐drug combination therapy. Whereas treatment‐related death occurred in 6 of 50 patients receiving the 5‐drug combination, no such incidence occurred in those receiving 3‐drug combination therapy.