Taxotere Outperforms Standard Drugs In Breast Cancer

Rhone-Poulenc Rorer's Taxotere (docetaxel) has become the first drug tooutperform doxorubicin in the treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer, according to the results of a Phase III trial reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Denver (see also Marketletter May 26).

Doxorubicin is the standard first-line chemotherapeutic treatment for breast cancer. Stephen Chan of City Hospital Breast Clinic in Nottingham, UK, who was one of the trialists, reported that patients who received Taxotere showed a 50% better overall response rate when compared with the doxorubicin group (47.2% versus 31.5%).

326 treatment-naive patients were enrolled into the Phase III study, and randomized to receive either Taxotere (100mg/m2) in a one-hour infusion every three weeks, or doxorubicin (75mg/m2) in a short infusion every three weeks. A breakdown of the response data is given below: