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Dose-Dense Anthracycline-Based Chemotherapy for Node-Positive Breast Cancer

From the Division of Medical Oncology, University of Washington, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, Seattle, WA.

Address reprint requests to Georgiana Ellis, MD, Division of Medical Oncology, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, 825 Eastlake Ave E, G3-200, Seattle, WA 98109-1023; email: gellis{at}u.washington.edu

PURPOSE: Theoretical considerations and clinical experience suggest that dose-dense chemotherapy may be superior to other approaches using the same drugs. We studied a dose-dense combination of doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide, with or without fluorouracil, as adjuvant therapy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with resected breast cancer were treated if they were node-positive and estrogen receptor–negative, positive for overexpression of Her-2-neu, or had four or more involved nodes. Doxorubicin was given weekly to a total dose of 480 mg/m². Cyclophosphamide 60 mg/m² was given daily by mouth during the period of doxorubicin treatment. The first 30 patients received fluorouracil at 300 mg/m²/wk intravenously concurrently with doxorubicin administration. In the last 22, it was omitted because of symptomatic hand-foot syndrome in the majority of patients. Filgrastim (granulocyte colony-stimulating factor [G-CSF]) was administered during chemotherapy every day except the day of intravenous administration and continued until 1 week after the completion of the chemotherapy.

RESULTS: Between October 20, 1992, and June 10, 1997, we enrolled 52 patients. The mean delivered dose-intensity for doxorubicin was 18.6 mg/m²/wk. Hospitalization was required in 6% of patients for reversible febrile neutropenia. There were no acute treatment-related deaths, but one patient subsequently died of acute leukemia with a characteristic translocation for anthracycline-related exposure. At 5 years, the event-free survival was 86% for all patients (95% confidence interval, 75% to 95%).

CONCLUSION: Continuous dose-dense chemotherapy with G-CSF support produced encouraging results, which seem to be superior to those expected with "standard" doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide chemotherapy. It deserves a test in the form of a randomized trial where this approach to anthracycline-based treatment is compared with intermittent administration.

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