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Gemcitabine and capecitabine in combination for advanced anthracycline and taxane pre-treated breast cancer patients: A phase II study

Abstract Aim. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical value of gemcitabine combined with capecitabine (GC) in heavily pre-treated patients with metastatic breast cancer. Material and methods. All patients had failed anthracyclines and taxanes. In 14 patients (41%), more than two metastatic sites were diagnosed with bone (68%) and liver (62%) being the most prominent. Gemcitabine (1 250 mg/m2, d1+8) and capecitabine (800 mg/m2 twice daily, d1-14) were administered according to a 3-week schedule. The majority of patients received GC as 3rd or 4th line chemotherapy for metastatic disease. Laboratory tests were done on day 1+8 in cycles. Subjective toxicity was recorded according to the NCI-CTC v. 2.0 criteria. Tumour evaluations were done every 12th week according to the RECIST criteria. The primary objective was to investigate time to progression. Secondary objectives were response rate with special focus on the proportion of patients achieving PR or SD of at least three months, toxicity and survival. Results. A total of 34 patients were enrolled. All subjects are eligible for toxicity, response and time to event analyses. Treatment was given until progressive disease, severe toxicity or until the patient wanted to withdraw. The Kaplan-Meier median time to progression was estimated to 4.3 months and the overall survival time to 13.7 months. Partial response was noted in 12 of 29 evaluable patients (41%). The best outcome amongst remaining patients was stable disease in nine (31%) or tumour progression in eight (28%). A delay of disease progression of more than three months was noted in 53% of the study population. The main side effect was granulocytopenia with 44% and 15% of patients suffering from grade 3 or grade 4 events respectively however, no neutropenic infections were observed. Pre-dominant grade 3 subjective toxicities were: fatigue (21% of patients) and hand-foot syndrome (15% of patients). Discussions. We investigated the value of the GC combination as a treatment for late stage breast cancer patients. Tumour progression was delayed and the treatment was well tolerated. We believe that the GC therapy can achieve meaningful palliation.