Newer Chemotherapies Improve Breast Cancer Outcome

[Angel]

Recent findings show newer chemotherapies can improve the outcome for patients with certain types of breast cancer.

Researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston reanalyzed the findings from three consecutive clinical trials of breast cancer treatment conducted over the past 20 years. They found new chemotherapies lower the rate of recurrence and risk of death in women with breast with lymph node involvement and estrogen-receptor (ER) negative tumors.

According to researchers, chemotherapy improvements reduced the risk of recurrence by 21 percent, 25 percent and 23 percent in the three studies.

Corresponding risk reductions for ER-positive tumors treated with tamoxifen were 9 percent, 12 percent and 8 percent. The overall reductions in death rate associated with the newer chemotherapies were 55 percent and 23 percent among ER-negative and ER-positive patients, respectively.
The absolute improvement in five-year-disease-free survival was 22.8 percent for ER-negative patients compared to 7 percent for ER-positive patients. The difference for overall survival improved 16.7 percent in ER-negative patients compared to 4 percent in those who were ER-positive.

"Although patients with ER-positive breast tumors may reasonably opt for chemotherapy, they should recognize that the benefits are not great as compared with those patients with ER-negative disease. In the years ahead, it is likely that we will have better predictors that will allow clinicians to determine which patients with ER-positive disease truly benefit from the addition of chemotherapy," study authors say.

"For patients with ER-negative disease, the overall disease-free survival and overall survival benefits of modern intensive and extensive chemotherapy considered in our study are substantial."