Cancer Drug Extends Life by a Few Months

The first comparison of two popular drugs has found that women with metastatic breast cancer live a few months longer with one of them, but with more severe side effects. These findings, presented recently at an international cancer conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, don’t necessarily mean that all women with advanced breast cancer should be offered Taxotere, which had a better survival record. Rather, the insight should help patients and doctors weigh their treatment options. Cancer patients have different attitudes toward treatment. Different people are willing to trade off quality for quantity of life. The most important thing is to give people the information and let them make their own decisions.

Women given Taxotere survived an average of 15.4 months, while those on Taxol survived an average of 12.7 months. The study involved 449 women with advanced breast cancer that continued to spread despite chemotherapy. Half were given Taxol (paclitaxel) and half were given Taxotere (docetaxel). Both medications belong to a class of drugs known as taxanes, which are widely used for several types of cancer. The study was financed by Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the maker of Taxotere.

Taxol, developed in the U.S. from the Pacific yew tree and available since 1992, was the first drug of its type. Taxotere, a synthetic drug, was developed in Europe and has been available since 1999.

The average time to progression was 5.7 months for the women on Taxotere, compared with 3.6 months among those on Taxol. Women who received Taxotere reported more side effects: weakness, bloating, diarrhea, vomiting, mouth ulcers, lower white cell count, and more infections. Among the women on Taxotere, 15% had fever while their white cell counts were low, compared with 2% of those treated with Taxol. In the majority of cases, side effects disappeared shortly after the treatment.

Both drugs were used once every three weeks in the study, but doctors have since started to give weekly infusions of Taxol. Future studies are expected to clarify how the two drugs compare on that basis.

Source material from www.nbcf.healthology.com