Second High-Dose Chemotherapy With Stem Cell Grafts Effective, But Toxic.(breast cancer)

2001 JUN 21 - (NewsRx Network) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Neoadjuvant high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) with stem cell support can control inflammatory breast cancer, with a cost of substantial toxicity, researchers in Italy report.

"With the introduction of combined modality therapy, approximately 30% of patients with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) are alive and free of disease at five years," according to Claudio Dazzi and colleagues at Santa Maria delle Croci Hospital in Ravenna. However, the said, "the lack of control of systemic disease continues to be the main reason for treatment failure."

A second regimen of HDCT combined with autologous peripheral blood progenitor cell (PBPC) transplantation can eradicate residual malignancy, Dazzi and coworkers found, but many patients were unable to tolerate multiple chemotherapy courses.

Of the 20 patients available for follow-up 48 months after treatment, 11 are alive with no discernible disease, the researchers said. Malignant cells were not observed in either breasts or lymph nodes in these patients.

However, only seven members of the study cohort were able to successfully complete two courses of HDCT. Five patients suffered congestive heart failure as a result of severe treatment-related cardiotoxicity, and one of those patients died, ...