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SAN ANTONIO-Adding weekly paclitaxel (Taxol) and carboplatin (Paraplatin) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) improves disease control among women with advanced breast cancer, according to results of an ongoing phase II trial reported by Howard A. Burris III, MD, director of drug development, Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, Nashville.

The 4th National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Conference on Adjuvant Therapy of Breast Cancer, held November 1-3, 2000, concluded that decreasing breast cancer mortality rates in the United States were due, at least in part, to advances made in adjuvant treatment. This fact lends credence to the importance of incremental improvements that have resulted from randomized, controlled clinical trials of adjuvant therapy, and underscores the value of this approach. With 185,000 new diagnoses of breast cancer expected in the United States in 2000, over 100,000 women may be candidates for some form of adjuvant therapy each year.[1]

Numerous trials have shown that the pharmacokinetic interferences of epirubicin (Ellence)/paclitaxel (Taxol) combinations produce less pharmacodynamic effect than doxorubicin/paclitaxel regimens. Paclitaxel is more easily

In a single-center, open, phase II trial, we assessed the toxicity and activity of a triple combination therapy-doxorubicin at 30 mg/m2 (day 1), paclitaxel (Taxol) at 135 mg/m2 (day 2), and gemcitabine (Gemzar) at 2,500 mg/m2

The goal of this activity is to clarify challenging treatment issues of HER2+ breast cancer including incorporation of predictive and prognostic biomarker tests and evidence-based data into practice when determining individualized strategies that improve patient survival and quality of life.

Capecitabine (Xeloda) is the first orally available fluoropyrimidine approved for use in patients with cancer. It was initially approved for use in metastatic breast cancer, but significant data also support its use in the management

WASHINGTON-Inositol hexa-phosphate (IP6) has shown antitumor effects in vitro and in animal models and may be ready for clinical trials in humans, said Ivana Vucenik, PhD, associate professor of medical and research technology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. She presented her study results at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation grants conference "Reaching for the Cure."

BETHESDA, Md-Adjuvant therapy should be offered as an option to node-negative breast cancer patients, even those with tumors smaller than 1 cm, said Bernard Fisher, MD, scientific director of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP).

BETHESDA, Md-High-risk breast cancer patients receiving intermediate- or high-dose consolidation chemotherapy after CAF achieved overall survival that is "better than any other experience within the CALGB," William Peters, MD, PhD, said at the NIH Consensus Conference on Adjuvant Therapy for Breast Cancer. He gave an update of CALGB 9082/SWOG 9114/NCIC MA-13.

NEW YORK-Letrozole (Femara) was found to be superior to tamoxifen (Nolvadex) in the largest study ever conducted of endocrine therapy in advanced breast cancer, Matthew J. Ellis, MD, PhD, clinical director of the Duke University Breast Cancer Program, said at the XVIII Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium. Median time to progression was 41 weeks for letrozole vs 26 weeks for tamoxifen (P = .0001), he said.