Background: Chemotherapy with anthracyclines/taxanes is considered as an effective treatment option for breast cancer. Adjuvant chemotherapeutic options with anthracyclines or taxanes have improved disease free survival and overall survival rates in early breast cancer. The study is aimed to compare the therapeutic efficacy of anthracyclines containing regimen and sequential administration of taxanes with anthracyclines regimen for NODE positive breast cancer patients and to assess the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) of treated patients. Methods: This prospective open label study involved 14 patients who were treated with 6 cycles of 5-Fluorouracil (500mg/m2 ), Doxorubicin (50mg/m2 ), Cyclophosphamide (500mg/m2 ) [FAC] and 10 patients with 6 cycles of FAC plus 4 cycles of Paclitaxel (225mg/m2 ) [PAC]. Paired sample T test was used to assess the disease-free survival and reoccurrence rate. Time to progression was assessed by Kaplan Meir analysis and independent sample T test was used for assessing all the HRQOL parameters. Results: The disease-free survival was evaluated between the baseline and after 2 months of the chemotherapy which showed significant difference (p<0.05) in the patients treated with FAC regimen. Further, significant difference (p<0.05) was also seen in the comparison of the first and end reports of chest x-ray during stage 3b. There was a significant improvement (p<0.05) in the quality of life in the patients treated with FAC with adjuvant Paclitaxel during the 3rd cycle. Conclusion: The study outcomes recommend that sequential administration of Paclitaxel with FAC can give more treatment benefit in stage 3 breast cancer.
Key words: Anthracyclines, Adjuvant therapy, Breast cancer, Disease free survival, HRQOL, Taxanes.
