Taxotere for Anthracycline Refractory Advanced Breast Cancer

COLLEGEVILLE, Penn--Rhône-Poulenc Rorer Inc.'s Taxotere(docetaxel) is now available for treatment of patients with locallyadvanced or metastatic breast cancer that has progressed duringanthracycline-based therapy or relapsed during anthracycline-basedadjuvant therapy.

In clinical studies, Taxotere has shown the highest response rateever (47%) for a single agent in this patient population at adose of 100 mg/m² given IV over 1 hour every 3 weeks, "avery convenient administration schedule," Howard A. BurrisIII, MD, of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center, San Antonio,said at a teleconference held to launch the new product.

Dr. Burris noted that "with a drug with this much impactin shrinking tumors in the advanced stage, the hope is that wewill eventually be able to bring it into stage I, II, and IIItreatment, and those clinical trials are ongoing."

The pivotal Taxotere trials were reported in this publicationin Nov 1995, page 1, and June 1996, page 16.