Interrupted versus Continuous Chemotherapy in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer

METASTATIC breast cancer is an incurable disease. Although endocrine therapy, chemotherapy, or both may produce an objective response, almost all patients subsequently have progressive disease and die of their illness. Objective responses to combination chemotherapy occur in 40 to 70 percent of patients and generally last 6 to 12 months; the median length of survival is approximately 18 months. 1 , 2 After the failure of initial chemotherapy, salvage regimens are often used, but the rates of response are poor, the responses are short-lived, and length of survival averages approximately 10 months. 1 , 3 Numerous combinations of cytotoxic drugs have been used to treat patients . . .