Conditions: Breast Cancer
Keywords: Stage II and IIIA breast Cancer. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Weekly docetaxel.
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 63
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Treatment consists of 4 AC cycles followed by 2 weekly docetaxel cycles (12 infusions).

The pathological complete response rate obtained in previous studies is around 12%. The expected pathological complete response rate in this study is 25%. With an alpha error of 0.05 and a beta error of 0.2, and following Simon´s 2 phase test, 19 patients are needed initially. With 2 pathological complete responses, patient recruitment will continue until approximately 61 patients are recruited. Twelve pathological complete responses are needed to confirm the study hypothesis.

Detailed description:
Patients received doxorubicin (60 mg/m2) and cyclophosphamide (600 mg/m2), both in a short intravenous infusion, every three weeks for four cycles (days 1, 22, 43 and 64). Three weeks later, docetaxel (36 mg/m2) was administered as a 30-min intravenous infusion, weekly for six weeks (days 85, 92, 99, 106, 113 and 120) followed by a 2-week resting period (8-week cycle). After that, patients received a second docetaxel cycle (infusions on days 141, 148, 155, 162, 169 and 176). Adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy were delivered according to the protocol of each participating center. Hormonal treatment was started after the last chemotherapy infusion in all patients with positive estrogen and/or progesterone receptor tumors and was continued for five years.

Semiquantitative determination of three molecular markers was carried out by immunocytochemical methods. Tissue samples were taken prior to initiation of chemotherapy from the core of the primary tumors. Specimens were sent to a central laboratory for analysis of Topo II, survivin and p27.

Arms:
arm 1: Patients received doxorubicin (60 mg/m2) and cyclophosphamide (600 mg/m2), both in a short intravenous infusion, every three weeks for four cycles. Later, docetaxel (36 mg/m2) was administered an intravenous infusion, weekly for six weeks followed by a 2-week resting period (8-week cycle).

Interventions: intervention 1: Doxorubicin intervention 2: Cyclophosphamide intervention 3: Docetaxel
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: None intervention 2: None intervention 3: None

Protocol document: