Conditions: Breast Cancer
Keywords: CAPECITABINE LAPATINIB
Allocation: NA | Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Enrollment: 24
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
HER2 is a protein that sits on the surface of breast cancer cells in some people. Because you are one of these people, your breast cancer is called "HER2-positive." The HER2 protein is involved in the growth of your breast cancer. Certain drugs can interfere with the ability of the HER2 protein to cause breast cancer growth. Trastuzumab is one of these drugs. You must have already received trastuzumab as treatment for your breast cancer to be considered for this study.

Other drugs are being studied in women with HER2-positive breast cancer. Lapatinib (Tykerb™) blocks signals that stimulate HER2-positive breast cancers to grow. The FDA approved lapatinib for use with capecitabine (Xeloda™) in patients who have metastatic breast cancer that has grown or spread after treatment with trastuzumab.

Capecitabine was approved by the FDA in 1998 for treating metastatic breast cancer. Capecitabine is a pill that blocks the way cancer cells multiply and grow. Usually, this medicine is taken twice a day for fourteen days. Then, patients do not take the pill for seven days. With this schedule and dose, some patients have had side effects that interfered with their comfort. We have used mathematical models to recommend a new schedule of capecitabine. In animals, 7 days of treatment with capecitabine followed by a 7-day break was safer and more active against breast cancer. The purpose of this study is to find out what effect (both good and bad) capecitabine has on you and your breast cancer when given in this new schedule and combined with lapatinib.

Detailed description:

Arms:
arm 1: The regimen consists of capecitabine 2,000mg twice daily for 7 days followed by a 7-day rest in combination with lapatinib 1,250mg orally daily.

Interventions: intervention 1: capecitabine, lapatinib
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: Capecitabine 2,000mg twice daily for 7 days followed by a 7-day rest in combination with lapatinib 1,250mg orally daily. Cycle length is 28 days (+/- 2 days).Toxicity assessment will occur q2 weeks for the first 4 weeks, then q4 weeks(+/- 2 days). Radiographic response assessment will take place q12 weeks (+/- 1 week). LVEF assessment will be repeated q12 weeks (+/- 1 week).

Protocol document: