TY  - JOUR
A1  - Loibl, Sibylle
A1  - Minckwitz, Gunter von
A1  - Harbeck, Nadia
A1  - Janni, Wolfgang
A1  - Elling, Dirk
A1  - Kaufmann, Manfred
A1  - Eggemann, Holm
A1  - Nekljudova, Valentina
A1  - Sommer, Harald
A1  - Kiechle, Marion
A1  - Kümmel, Sherko
T1  - Clinical feasibility of (neo)adjuvant taxane-based chemotherapy in older patients : analysis of >4,500 patients from four German randomized breast cancer trials
T2  - Breast cancer research
N2  - Introduction: Despite the fact that people older than 65 years of age have the highest incidence of developing breast cancer, these patients are excluded from clinical trials in most cases. Furthermore, most physicians tend towards therapy regimens without the use of dose-dense, highly active taxane-based treatments because of a lack of data regarding toxicities of these compounds in older patients.
Methods: Pooled side-effect data were analyzed from four prospective, randomized clinical trials in which patients of different age groups (< 60 years, between 60 and 64 years, and > 64 years) with primary breast cancer received taxane-based chemotherapy.
Results: Dose delays, dose reductions, hospitalization, and therapy discontinuation increased with age. Hematologic toxicities and some nonhematologic toxicities were generally more common in older patients. Leucopenia increased from 55.3% in patients aged < 60 years to 65.5% in patients aged > 64 years (P < 0.001), and neutropenia increased from 46.9% to 57.4% (P < 0.001). There was no difference, however, in clinically more relevant febrile neutropenia between the different age groups. Thrombopenia shows a similar age-dependent increase, whereas there is no difference between the age groups concerning anemia. Hot flushes and elevated liver enzymes decreased with increasing age.
Conclusions: The present pooled analysis of a substantial cohort of older primary breast cancer patients demonstrates that taxane-containing (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy is feasible in older patients and that toxicity can be reduced by sequential therapy regimens.
Y1  - 2008
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/27378
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-273787
SN  - 1465-5411
SN  - 1465-542X
N1  - © 2008 Loibl et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
VL  - 10
IS  - 5, Art. R77
SP  - 1
EP  - 13
PB  - London
CY  - BioMed Central
ER  -