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Sequencing of Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy in Early-Stage Breast Cancer: Updated Results of a Prospective Randomized Trial

From the Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medical Oncology, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Department of Biostatistics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Harvard Medical School; Departments of Radiation Oncology and Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA

Address reprint requests to Jennifer R. Bellon, MD, Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 75 Francis St, Boston, MA 02115; e-mail: jbellon{at}lroc.harvard.edu

PURPOSE: The optimal integration of chemotherapy with radiation (RT) for patients with early-stage breast cancer remains uncertain. We present the long-term results of a prospective randomized trial to address this question.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Two hundred forty-four patients were randomly assigned after conservative breast surgery to receive 12 weeks of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, methotrexate, fluorouracil, and prednisone (CAMFP) before RT (CT-first) or after RT (RT-first). Median follow-up for surviving patients was 135 months.

RESULTS: There were no significant differences between the CT-first and RT-first arms in time to any event, distant metastasis, or death. Sites of first failure were also not significantly different.

CONCLUSION: Among breast cancer patients treated with conservative surgery, there is no advantage to giving RT before adjuvant chemotherapy. However, this study does not have enough statistical power to rule out a clinically important survival benefit for either sequence.

Presented in part at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, San Francisco, CA, November 5, 2001.

Authors' disclosures of potential conflicts of interest are found at the end of this article.

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