Gemcitabine and cisplatin combination regimen in patients with anthracycline- and taxane-pretreated metastatic breast cancer

This study was conducted to evaluate the response rate of gemcitabine and cisplatin as second-line combination chemotherapy in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) previously treated with anthracyclines and taxanes. Thirty-eight eligible women with measurable disease and anthracycline- and taxane-pretreated MBC were enrolled. The chemotherapy treatment consisted of gemcitabine (1,250 mg/m² by intravenous infusion over 30 min on days 1 and 8) and cisplatin (75 mg/m² by intravenous infusion over 1 h on day 1), which were administered every 21 days. Thirty-seven of 38 (97.4%) of patients were assessable for response. The objective response rate was 42.1% (95% CI, 26.4–57.8%) with 16 partial responses. The median time to progression (TTP) and overall survival (OS) for all patients were 5.4 months (95% CI, 2.7–8.1 months) and 13.9 months (95% CI, 9.4–18.4 months), respectively. The most frequent hematologic-related adverse events were grade 3/4 leucopenia and thrombocytopenia, observed in 10 patients (27.0%) and 11 (29.7%), respectively. Grade 3 stomatitis was observed in 3 (8.1%) patients. No grade 4 nonhematologic toxicity was observed in this study. No treatment-related deaths occurred during the study. In conclusion, the combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin is a safe and tolerable regimen as second-line combination for patients with anthracycline- and taxane-pretreated MBC.