Taxotere^® Chemotherapy Benefits: Breast Cancer

Taxotere^® (docetaxel ) chemotherapy may offer benefits to some women living with breast cancer. In clinical trials (also called studies) comparing Taxotere^® to other chemotherapy drug treatments for breast cancer, women receiving Taxotere^® may experienced advantages like the following:

• Longer survival
• Tumor shrinkage
• Lower risk of breast cancer returning
• Fewer treatment delays due to side effects
• And more

More Details On Taxotere^® Chemotherapy Treatment For Breast Cancer

Taxotere^® Chemotherapy Treatment Proven Effective in Breast Cancer Studies

Taxotere^® received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) to treat women with breast cancer. This approval was based on studies that proved the effectiveness of Taxotere^® compared to other chemotherapy drugs in treating breast cancer.

In studies including women with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, whose cancer progressed during or after treatment with other chemotherapy, Taxotere^® demonstrated the following advantages over other chemotherapy drugs:

• When compared to women receiving the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin, more women receiving Taxotere^® experienced tumor shrinkage.
  • Tumor size shrunk in 45.3% of women receiving Taxotere^® and in 29.7% of women receiving doxorubicin.
• When compared to women receiving the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel, many women receiving Taxotere^® lived longer.
• When compared to women receiving the chemotherapy regimen of mitomycin C plus vinblastine, more women receiving Taxotere^® experienced tumor shrinkage.
  • Tumor size shrunk in 28.1% of women receiving Taxotere^® and in 9.5% of women receiving mitomycin C plus vinblastine.
• In the same study, many women receiving Taxotere^® lived longer than women receiving mitomycin C plus vinblastine.

A clinical trial including women with operable , node-positive breast cancer (early-stage breast cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes but can be treated with surgery) compared the following two adjuvant chemotherapy regimens:

• TAC: Taxotere^®, doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide
• FAC: The drugs 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide

TAC demonstrated the following benefits over FAC:

• Longer survival: Many women receiving TAC lived longer than women receiving FAC.
• More women receiving Taxotere^® were able to complete all of their treatment cycles.
• Many women receiving Taxotere^® had fewer treatment delays due to side effects than women receiving other chemotherapy drugs.

For more information, visit the Taxotere^® Side Effects page in this section.