Taxane-Based Regimens as Adjuvant Treatment for Breast Cancer: a Retrospective Study in Egyptian Cancer Patients

Background: To evaluate the impact of adding taxanes to anthracycline-based regimens in the adjuvant settingin localized young female breast cancer patients on the overall survival (OS) and the disease free survival (DFS).Materials and
Methods: This retrospective study included all female breast cancer patients who were candidatesfor adjuvant chemotherapy presenting to Kasr Al Ainy centre of clinical oncology and Cairo oncology centre(Cairo Cure) in the period from January 2005 till December 2010.
Results: Our study included 865 patients, 732of whom received anthracycline based regimens and 133 taxane based regimens. The mean age of patients was39 years. After a median follow up of 50 months the median DFS was 48.4 months. Survival analysis indicatedthat the tumor size (>5cm vs. <5cm) p=0.001), nodal involvement (Yes vs. No) p=0.0001) and pathology (invasivelobular vs. ductal) p=0.048) affected DFS. As regards hormonal status, ER, PR and HER 2neu positive patientshad longer DFS (p=0.001, 0.003, 0.106). On multivariate analysis DFS was affected by tumor size and lymph nodeinvolvement (p=0.014, 0.007). Subgroup analysis showed improvement in arms treated with taxanes in terms ofDFS with positive Her2neu, ER and PR, but this was not statistically significant.
Conclusions: Adding adjuvanttaxanes to anthracyclines is beneficial for treatment of localized breast cancer among all subgroups, especiallyhigher risk groups .The type of adjuvant chemotherapy regimens and tumor characteristics have direct effectson DFS.