Abstract
Prolonged infusions of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) have been used since the early 1960s, but recently there has been a major resurgence of interest, partly because of the advent of electronically controlled portable infusion pumps. This paper looks at the published data on continuously infused 5-FU in breast cancer. As a single agent, bolus 5-FU has a response rate of around 25%; this includes many patients in older series who were chemotherapy naive. The overall response rate across all the studies with continuously infused 5-FU is 29%. However, the majority of these patients were heavily pretreated, and response rates of up to 54% have been reported. What is more encouraging is the response rate in combination chemotherapy--even for pretreated patients with metastatic disease, response rates up to 89% have been found. However, this level of benefit brings a new toxicity--palmar--plantar erythrodysaesthesia; and of course myelotoxicity still remains a problem in the combination regimens. Randomised trials to assess the role of infusional 5-FU are now indicated.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 120-4 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | British Journal of Cancer |
Volume | 70 |
Issue number | 1 |
Publication status | Published - Jul 1994 |
Keywords
- Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols
- Breast Neoplasms
- Female
- Fluorouracil
- Humans
- Immunosuppression
- Infusion Pumps
- Infusions, Intravenous