Taxanes in Adjuvant Treatment
Posted 1/4/2010
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A recent review article by Bernard and his colleagues examined the use of taxanes (taxol and taxotere) in adjuvant treatment for early breast cancer. Here is the abstract and then a link if you want to read more:
Three recent meta-analyses suggest that taxanes are beneficial in the adjuvant setting, irrespective ofthe patient's age, lymph-node involvement, hormone-receptor expression, and HER2 status. Nevertheless, the optimal role for taxanes in the adjuvant management of early-stage breast cancer remains controversial. We review the results of the first-generation taxane trials and discuss possible explanations for the differences observed in these studies, including variation in the 'strength' of anthracycline therapy in the control arms; suboptimal timing, dosing, or schedule of the taxane regimen; a masking effect of trials that included patients with relatively chemotherapy-insensitive luminal A disease; and decreased representation of the putative taxane-sensitive disease subset. Inclusion criteria for future clinical trials must be revised to account for the molecular heterogeneity of breast cancer and further optimize the role of adjuvant taxane therapy in early-stage disease
http://tiny.cc/OvnE6
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