Conditions: Breast Cancer Neurotoxicity
Keywords: neurotoxicity stage I breast cancer stage II breast cancer stage IIIA breast cancer stage IIIB breast cancer stage IIIC breast cancer
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 226
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
RATIONALE: Chemotherapy may cause memory loss, attention loss, and other problems that make it difficult for patients to think clearly. EGb761 may help maintain mental clarity in patients undergoing chemotherapy.

PURPOSE: Randomized clinical trial to study the effectiveness of EGb761 in preventing loss of mental clarity in women who are receiving chemotherapy for newly diagnosed breast cancer.

Detailed description:
OBJECTIVES:

* Determine the effectiveness of EGb761 in the prevention of chemotherapy-related cognitive dysfunction in women with breast cancer.
* Determine the safety and tolerability of this drug when administered during adjuvant chemotherapy in these patients.
* Assess the onset and trajectory of cognitive loss that may occur during chemotherapy in these patients.
* Assess the quality of life and cognitive role functioning of patients treated with this drug.

OUTLINE: This is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to type of chemotherapy (doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide vs doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide with taxane vs other anthracycline-based chemotherapy vs other non-anthracycline-based chemotherapy), age (18 to 49 vs 50 and over), menopausal status at start of therapy (premenopausal vs postmenopausal vs unknown for surgical reasons), and lymph node involvement (0-3 vs 4 or more). Patients are randomized to 1 of 2 treatment arms.

* Arm I: Patients receive oral EGb761 twice daily.
* Arm II: Patients receive oral placebo twice daily. Patients in both arms receive treatment beginning no later than the start of the second course of chemotherapy and continuing until 1 month after the completion of chemotherapy.

Quality of life and cognitive function are assessed at baseline, monthly during chemotherapy, and then at 1, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months.

Patients are followed every 6 months for 2 years.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 220 patients (110 per treatment arm) will be accrued for this study within 11 months.

Arms:
arm 1: 120 mg per day (60 mg BID) arm 2: 1 tablet BID

Interventions: intervention 1: Ginkgo Biloba intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Patients will take 120 mg per day (60 mg BID) intervention 2: Patients will take 1 tablet BID

Protocol document: