OPTIMIZING TREATMENT OUTCOMES - A REVIEW OF CURRENT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN FIRST-LINE CHEMOTHERAPY OF METASTATIC BREAST-CANCER

Metastatic breast cancer remains an essentially incurable disease and chemotherapy, despite producing frequent and clinically useful respons es, has had st disappointing impact on survival. Several highly promis ing lines of clinical research with new agents, combinations and dosag es may yet produce an improved outcome. Of the new drugs that have bee n studied, the taxoids, docetaxel and paclitaxel appear to be the most active agents vet discovered in this setting; navelbine is also activ e. Investigations of high-dose chemotherapy have produced the highest rates of complete response achieved in patients with this condition. T he results of recent randomised trials confirm the high activity of th is modality and also suggest a survival advantage compared with more t raditionally dosed treatment. Active research into biological therapy is also under way and vaccines, antibodies and inhibitors of growth fa ctors are all being evaluated. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.