Researchers from the University of California San Francisco presented an abstract this weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) that suggests that in metastatic breast cancer patients, paclitaxel is superior to both nab-paclitaxel and ixabepilone .
The randomized trial had three arms:
-- Paclitaxel and bevacizumab (Avastin)
-- Nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel or Abraxane) and bevacizumab
-- Ixabepilone (Ixempra) and bevacizumab
The median progression-free survival (PFS) for each arm was as follows:
-- 10.6 months
-- 9.2 months
-- 7.6 months (this PFS was considered so bad that it was dropped from the trial at an interim analysis)
Furthermore, patients in the paclitaxel arm also experienced less peripheral neuropathy, and they experienced less hematologic toxicity, than patients in the other arms.
"These data suggest that similar patients could be appropriately treated with weekly paclitaxel," said researchers. They cited one of the reasons for conducting the trial being the increasing costs of drugs that are not available as generics.
Investigators paired all of the arms with bevacizumab because of findings from a recent trial indicated a benefit in PFS among metastatic breast cancer patients when the drug was added to conventional chemotherapy.
Source: Medpage Today
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