Cardiac effects associated with breast cancer treatment appear lower with dose-dense chemotherapy

A new pilot study by investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) found that breast cancer patients can be treated safely with a "dose-dense" regimen of standard chemotherapy agents and the antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin®), a drug that has previously been shown to cause cardiac toxicity. While previous reports evaluating the cardiac effects of breast cancer treatments including trastuzumab and anthracyclines have shown an acceptable safety margin, the new study demonstrates an even lower risk of cardiac toxicity when standard doses of these drugs are administered more frequently over time – a treatment plan called "dose-dense," which has previously been shown to be a...

Want to see the full article?

• Purchase this article for only $3.00