Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. Taxotere is now approved in 22 countries and available in seven. More than half of the women who have failed other therapies respond, meaning they see tumor shrinkage and an improvement in symptoms.
Breast cancer is a condition marked by the growth of abnormal cells in glandular breast tissue.
About 4,000 Portuguese women are diagnosed with and nearly 1,600 die from breast cancer each year. Any new drug developments in this area are to be welcomed. The new agent has been studied extensively in clinical trials worldwide, including Portugal. Results are mainly from multi-center studies and are consistent and reproducible across Europe, the United States and Canada. Taxotere acts on the internal skeleton by promoting the assembly and blocking the disassembly of microtubules, which prohibits cancer cell division and stops tumor growth.