A prospective, randomized trial has shown that standard adjuvant chemotherapy is superior to capecitabine in the treatment of women with breast cancer aged 65 years or older; on the basis of the results of this study, capecitabine cannot be recommended in this setting.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group (EBCTCG). Adjuvant chemotherapy in oestrogen-receptor-poor breast cancer: patient-level meta-analysis of randomised trials. Lancet 371, 29–40 (2008).
Giordano, S. H., Duan, Z., Kuo, Y. F., Hortobagyi, G. N. & Goodwin, J. S. Use and outcomes of adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with breast cancer. J. Clin. Oncol. 24, 2750–2756 (2006).
Elkin, E. B., Hurria, A., Mitra, N., Schrag, D. & Panageas, K. S. Adjuvant chemotherapy and survival in older women with hormone receptor-negative breast cancer: assessing outcome in a population-based, observational cohort. J. Clin. Oncol. 24, 2757–2764 (2006).
Tai, P. et al. Modeling the effect of age in T1–2 breast cancer using the SEER database. BMC Cancer 5, 130–139 (2005).
Daidone, M. G., Coradini, D., Martelli, G. & Veneroni, S. Primary breast cancer in elderly women: biological profile and relation with clinical outcome. Crit. Rev. Oncol. Hematol. 45, 313–325 (2003).
Muss, H. B. et al. Adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with early-stage breast cancer. N. Engl. J. Med. 360, 2055–2065 (2009).
Partridge, A. H., Wang, P. S., Winer, E. P. & Avorn, J. Nonadherence to adjuvant tamoxifen therapy in women with primary breast cancer. J. Clin. Oncol. 21, 602–606 (2003).
Crivellari, D. et al. Burdens and benefits of adjuvant cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil and tamoxifen for elderly patients with breast cancer: the International Breast Cancer Study Group Trial VII. J. Clin. Oncol. 18, 1412–1422 (2000).
Jones, S. et al. Docetaxel with cyclophosphamide is associated with an overall survival benefit compared with doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide: 7-Year follow-up of US Oncology Research Trial. J. Clin. Oncol. 27, 1177–1183 (2009).
Wang, Y. et al. Gene-expression profiles to predict distant metastasis of lymph-node-negative primary breast cancer. Lancet 365, 671–679 (2005).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jager, A., Verweij, J. & Sleijfer, S. Adjuvant chemotherapy in older patients with breast cancer. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 6, 563–565 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2009.142
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2009.142