Onkológia 3/2014

Anthracyclines in treating metastatic breast cancer

Metastatic breast cancer is an incurable disease. It is a chemosensitive disease in which chemotherapy significantly prolongs the survival of patients. Anthracyclines are among the most effective cytostatic drugs in the treatment for breast cancer. The major limitation of treatment is the cardiotoxicity of anthracyclines which increases after the cumulative dose is reached. The treatment of patients pretreated with adjuvant anthracyclines is thus problematic. Liposomal doxorubicin (Myocet) which has been shown to have equal efficacy to conventional anthracyclines, but lower cardiotoxicity in first-line treatment for metastatic disease in clinical trials seems to be a good alternative.

Keywords: anthracyclines, cardiotoxicity, liposomal doxorubicin.