Treatment Information

Cancer Monthly > Treatment Information
Back

Breast Cancer treatment details. Biologic therapy.

Cleveland Clinic Brain Tumor Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, United States.

Survival: monthsCountry:United States
Toxiciy Grade:4City/State/Province:Cleveland, Ohio
Treatments:Biologic therapyHospital:Cleveland Clinic Brain Tumor Institute
Drugs:Journal:Link
Date:Jan 2006

Description:

Patients: This Phase III study involved 515 patients of whom 397 had brain metastases from advanced non-small-cell lung cancer or breast cancer. The patients were divided into two groups, with lung cancer patients comprising over half of each group and breast cancer patients at least 20 percent. Forty-four percent of all patients were men, and fifty-six percent were women. Group B had 265 patients.

Treatment: For Group B, treatment consisted of whole brain radiotherapy and thebiological therapy agent efaproxiral. Efaproxiral is an allosteric modifier of hemoglobin.

Toxicity: For Group B, grade 3-4 toxicities included hypoxemia, headache, vomiting, nausea, and constipation.

Results: For Group A, the median overall survival was 4.4 months. For Group B, the median overall survival was 5.4 months. The authors commented that while there did not seem to be a large survival advantage with efaproxiral, some of their data suggested a significant treatment effect among only the breast cancer patients compared to the NSCLC or other cancer patients in the study.

Support: Allos Therapeutics financially and intellectually contributed to this study, and several authors have disclosed financial relationships with Allos Therapeutics. Allos Therapeutics develops, manufactures, and markets efaproxiral.

Correspondence: John H. Suh, MD



Email Physician More Information


Back