Effects of Two Chemotherapy Regimens, Anthracycline-basedand CMF, on Breast Cancer Disease Free Survival in theEastern Mediterranean Region and Asia: A Meta-AnalysisApproach for Survival Curves

Background: To compare the effects of two adjuvant chemotherapy regimens, anthracycline-based andcyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorourical (CMF) on disease free survival for breast cancer patients in theEastern Mediterranean region and Asia.
Methods: In a systematic review with a multivariate mixed modelmeta-analysis, the reported survival proportion at multiple time points in different studies were combined.Our data sources were studies linking the two chemotherapy regimens on an adjuvant basis with disease freesurvival published in English and Persian in the Eastern Mediterranean region and Asia. All survival curves weregenerated with Graphdigitizer software.
Results: 14 retrospective cohort studies were located from electronicdatabases. We analyzed data for 1,086 patients who received anthracycline-based treatment and 1,109 given CMFtreatment. For determination of survival proportions and time we usesb the transformation Ln (-Ln(S)) and Ln(time) to make precise estimations and then fit the model. All analyses were carried out with STATA software.
Conclusions: Our findings showed a significant efficacy of anthracycline-based adjuvant therapy regardingdisease free survival of breast cancer. As a limitation in this meta-analysis we used studies with different typesof anthracycline-based regimens.