TNBC to start chemo next week

Hi jenkwa2!   Good luck with your first chemo...sounds like you are trying to educate yourself prior to chemo and that is a good thing.

For alot of information go to the Chemotherapy thread on here...you will probably even find a group of women that you can talk to starting chemo in February also.

Good luck and let us know how you are doing!

I had that exact chemo regimen. I never got mouth sores. Howevere I made a decision to eat super healthy and cut out all fats from my diet which kind of backfired during the chemo - I dropped 20 lbs and they were concerned about such a drastic weight loss. At the end I started going back to eating whatever could fatten me up, even ice cream. I know some women gain weight on chemo, but I'm thinking it's the ones who need steroids from the Taxol, which I didn't.

They will give you meds that help with the nausea. For me, the AC was rough, but at the end of the two weeks I'd feel OK. The Taxol weekly though had a cumulative effect, with increasing neuropathy and fatigue each time. My hair did start growing back 1/2 way through though!

Good luck and let me know if theres anything else!

Hi,

I'm new to this forum but I've been on TNBC foundationsite and Inspire - advanced Breast cancer site for over 2 years. My wife has met TNBC. Please read this recent posting from TNBC site and show to your oncologist.

"Chemotherapy Sequence Affects Early Breast Cancer Outcomes

Elsevier Global Medical News. 2011 Jan 7, B Jancin

SAN ANTONIO (EGMN) - The sequence in which paclitaxel and anthracyclines are given for treatment of early breast cancer makes a big difference in long-term outcomes.

That's the conclusion reached in what is believed to be the largest-ever retrospective study of the clinical impact of the sequencing of taxanes and anthracyclines. The study involved 3,010 early breast cancer patients who were treated during 1994-2009 and entered into the prospective online database at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

The clear winner was paclitaxel, followed by anthracycline-based therapy with 5-fluorouracil, doxorubicin (Adriamycin), and cyclophosphamide or 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide, Dr. Ricardo H. Alvarez reported at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Starting with paclitaxel rather than an anthracycline-first regimen led to better long-term results in the settings of adjuvant chemotherapy and primary systemic (or neoadjuvant) therapy.

The adjuvant chemotherapy analysis included 1,596 women, three-quarters of whom received paclitaxel followed by anthracyclines. The 5-year relapse-free survival rate with this regimen was 88.8%, compared with 79.5% when anthracyclines were followed by paclitaxel. The 10-year relapse-free survival rates were 81.8% and 73.5%, respectively.

Five-year overall survival was 93.1% with paclitaxel followed by anthracyclines, compared with 83.2% for the reverse. The 10-year overall survival rates were 83.9% and 65.6%, respectively.

In a multivariate analysis that was stratified for potential confounders, including age, clinical stage, hormone receptor status, tumor grade, and era of diagnosis, the anthracyclines-first sequence was associated with a 67% increased risk of relapse (P less than .0001) and a 2.5-fold greater risk of mortality (P = .001), according to Dr. Alvarez, a medical oncologist at M.D. Anderson.

Among 1,414 patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy, the 5-year relapse-free survival rate was 79.0% with the paclitaxel-first regimen vs. 61.2% with the anthracyclines-first regimen. Ten-year relapse-free survival occurred in 61.7% and 50.5%, respectively, of these patients.

Overall survival was 84.2% and 66.2% at 5 and 10 years, respectively, in patients who received paclitaxel followed by anthracyclines, compared with 71.3% and 53.4% in those who got anthracyclines first.

In a multivariate analysis, the anthracyclines-followed-by-paclitaxel sequence of neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with an adjusted 49% higher risk of relapse (P = .01) and a nonsignificant 28% increase in risk of all-cause mortality (P = .17), compared with the paclitaxel-first strategy.

The mechanism that accounts for the increased efficacy of taxane-first regimens for treatment of breast cancer is unclear, according to Dr. Alvarez."

I hope this info is helpful. This is usually the opposite way the chemo is given.

John

Bump for lilylady

I found the TNBC site to be somewhat negative.  I don't bother with it anymore.  Sorry I didn't see this thread earlier.  

I had DD ACx4 and DD Tx4.  I wanted to get this done with ASAP.  Evidently there are no studies that compare 12 weekly T and 4 DD, which I find hard to believe.

I sailed right through it and was queasy literally 2 or 3 times.  I did have bone pain with Taxol and Neulasta 2 out of 3 times.  I didn't get the shot after my last T and have a follow up next week to make sure my white blood cells are back to normal.  

Happy to say I am just over 2 weeks past my last chemo, and I feel terriffic!!  Now if I could just grow my hair faster!!

Best of luck to you, and I hope you have an experience as good as mine was.