[Current status and perspectives of chemotherapy for anthracycline-pretreated breast cancer]

Abstract

Randomized trials performed in anthracycline-pretreated breast cancer patients have demonstrated good activity of taxane-based regimens. In a face to face comparison, single-agent docetaxel proved to be significantly more effective than paclitaxel. Treatment with docetaxel was also associated with an increased incidence of grade grade-3/4 toxicities in this trial. Antitumor activity of taxane-based combination regimens was clearly superior to single-agent therapy in two trials. As anticipated, treatment-associated toxicity was greater with combination regimens, but this did not affect quality of life.