Epirubicin clinical trial shows treatment improves survival rate.

2003 JUL 3 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Results from the largest trial of its kind show that a particular chemotherapy regime, which includes a drug called Epirubicin (Pharmacia & Upjohn Co.), can prevent breast cancer recurrence following surgery and reduce deaths from the disease.

The results of the British trial were announced on the first day of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Chris Poole from the Cancer Research U.K. Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Birmingham said, "Modern chemotherapy treatments usually involve a cocktail of drugs that work together to help prevent cancer recurrence. Through clinical trials these combinations have been refined over the years and survival rates have gradually improved. This particular trial has yielded a dramatic difference in survival and it's incredibly rare to get such a significant increase by using existing drugs in a slightly different way."

The trial, called NEAT (National Epirubicin Adjuvant Trial), compared treatment using four rounds of Epirubicin followed by four rounds of standard chemotherapy (CMF) with six rounds of CMF alone. In both groups the drug doses were higher than those often used routinely.

Over the trial recruitment period of five years, women who were treated with ...