Abstract
Purpose We investigated whether irinotecan plus capecitabine improved progression-free survival (PFS) compared with capecitabine alone in patients with human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) negative and anthracycline and taxane pretreated metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Materials and Methods A total of 221 patients were randomly assigned to irinotecan (80 mg/m 2 , days 1 and 8) and capecitabine (1,000 mg/m 2 twice a day, days 1-14) or capecitabine alone (1,250 mg/m 2 twice a day, days 1-14) every 3 weeks. The primary endpoint was PFS. Results There was no significant difference in PFS between the combination and monotherapy arm (median, 6.4 months vs. 4.7 months; hazard ratio [HR], 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.63 to 1.11; p=0.84). In patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC, n=90), the combination significantly improved PFS (median, 4.7 months vs. 2.5 months; HR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.37 to 0.91; p=0.02). Objective response rate was numerically higher in the combination arm, though it failed to reach statistical significance (44.4% vs. 33.3%, p=0.30). Overall survival did not differ between arms (median, 20.4 months vs. 24.0 months; p=0.63). While grade 3 or 4 neutropenia was more common in the combination arm (39.6% vs. 9.0%), hand-foot syndrome was more often observed in capecitabine arm. Quality of life measurements in global health status was similar. However, patients in the combination arm showed significantly worse symptom scales especially in nausea/vomiting and diarrhea. Conclusion Irinotecan plus capecitabine did not prove clinically superior to single-agent capecitabine in anthracycline- and taxane-pretreated HER2 negative MBC patients. Toxicity profiles of the two groups differed but were manageable. The role of added irinotecan in patients with TNBC remains to be elucidated.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 43-52 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Cancer Research and Treatment |
Volume | 51 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2019 Jan 1 |
Keywords
- Capecitabine
- Clinical trial
- Irinotecan
- Metastatic breast cancer
- Progression-free survival
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Oncology
- Cancer Research