Adjuvant dose-dense sequential chemotherapy with epirubicin, CMF, and weekly docetaxel is feasible and safe in patients with operable breast cancer

George Fountzilas6 , Dimitrios Pectasides1, Christos Christodoulou2, Eleni Timotheadou6, Theofanis Economopoulos1, Pavlos Papakostas3, Christos Papadimitriou4, Helen Gogas5, Ioannis Efstratiou6 and Dimosthenis Skarlos2

(1) University General Hospital “Attikon”, Athens, Greece
(2) “Henry Dunant” Hospital, Athens, Greece
(3) “Hippokratio” General Hospital, Athens, Greece
(4) Department of Clinical Therapeutics, University of Athens School of Medicine, “Alexandra” Hospital, Athens, Greece
(5) University of Athens School of Medicine, “Laiko” Hospital, Athens, Greece
(6) Dept. of Medical Oncology, “Papageorgiou” Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of Medicine, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece

Received: 21 January 2006 Accepted: 23 April 2006

Abstract Currently, randomized phase III trials have demonstrated that docetaxel is an effective strategy in the adjuvant treatment of breast cancer. However, previous attempts to incorporate docetaxel with an anthracycline in a dosedense regimen have been unsuccessful. Therefore, new schedules containing both drugs should be explored. Forty-four patients with high-risk operable breast cancer entered this feasibility study. They were treated with three cycles of epirubicin 110 mg/m2 every 2 wk with G-CSF followed by three cycles of “intensified” CMF (840 mg/m2 cyclophosphamide; 57 mg/m2 methotrexate; 840 mg/m2 fluorouracil) every 2 wk with G-CSF followed 3 wk later by nine weekly cycles of 35 mg/m2 docetaxel (E-CMF-doc). Totally, 39 patients (89%) received all cycles of chemotherapy. The vast majority (92%) of cycles were administered at full dose. Therefore, dose intensity was sufficiently maintained for all drugs. Toxicity was generally mild to moderate. Most frequently recorded side effects apart from alopecia were neutropenia (54%) and nausea/vomiting (89%). Infection developed in nine patients. Two cases of febrile neutropenia were reported. The E-CMF-doc regimen, as used in this study, is feasible and well tolerated. Its impact on survival should be evaluated in phase III trials.
Key words Breast cancer - chemotherapy - docetaxel - anthracyclines