Breast Cancer
Conditions
Keywords
stage I breast cancer, stage II breast cancer
Brief summary
RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Combining more than one drug may kill more tumor cells. It is not yet known which chemotherapy regimen is more effective in treating women after surgery for breast cancer. PURPOSE: Randomized phase III trial to compare the effectiveness of paclitaxel, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide with or without gemcitabine in treating women who have undergone surgery for breast cancer.
Detailed description
OBJECTIVES: * Compare the 5-year and 10-year disease-free survival and overall survival of women with completely resected early stage breast cancer treated with adjuvant paclitaxel, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide with or without gemcitabine. * Compare the toxicity, dose-intensity, and tolerability of these regimens in these patients. * Compare the serious adverse events in patients treated with these regimens. OUTLINE: This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to nodal status (negative vs 1-3 vs 4 or more), age (50 and under vs over 50), estrogen receptor status (negative vs weakly positive vs positive), concurrent radiotherapy (no vs yes), HER2 status (3+ overexpression vs other vs not measured), and country. Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms. * Arm I: Patients receive epirubicin IV, cyclophosphamide IV, and paclitaxel IV over 3 hours on day 1. Patients also receive gemcitabine IV over 30 minutes on days 1 and 8. Treatment repeats every 3 weeks for 4 courses in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. * Arm II: Patients receive epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel as in arm I. Patients are followed every 3 months for 6 months, every 6 months for 3 years, and then annually for 6 years. PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 3,000 patients (1,500 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study within 3-4 years.
Interventions
DRUGcyclophosphamide
DRUGepirubicin hydrochloride
DRUGgemcitabine hydrochloride
DRUGpaclitaxel
PROCEDUREadjuvant therapy
Sponsors
Cancer Research Campaign Clinical Trials Centre
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
FEMALE
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS: * Histologically confirmed newly diagnosed invasive breast cancer * Early stage disease * Completely resected disease * No more than 8 weeks since prior resection * Any nodal status * Indication for adjuvant chemotherapy * No metastatic disease * Hormone receptor status: * Estrogen receptor negative or weakly positive OR * Estrogen receptor positive AND progesterone receptor negative or weakly positive PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS: Age: * 18 and over Sex: * Female Menopausal status: * Not specified Performance status: * ECOG 0-2 Life expectancy: * Not specified Hematopoietic: * WBC greater than 3,000/mm3 * Platelet count greater than 100,000/mm3 * Hemoglobin greater than 9 g/dL Hepatic: * Bilirubin normal * AST and ALT no greater than 1.5 times normal Renal: * Creatinine no greater than 1.5 times normal Other: * Fit to receive study chemotherapy * No active uncontrolled infection * No other malignancy within the past 10 years except basal cell carcinoma or carcinoma in situ of the cervix * No other concurrent medical or psychiatric problems that would preclude study * Not pregnant or nursing * Negative pregnancy test * Fertile patients must use effective contraception PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY: Biologic therapy: * Not specified Chemotherapy: * See Disease Characteristics * No prior chemotherapy Endocrine therapy: * Not specified Radiotherapy: * No prior radiotherapy Surgery: * See Disease Characteristics
Countries
United Kingdom
Outcome results
None listed