Haematological toxicity: a marker of adjuvant chemotherapy efficacy in stage II and III breast cancer.

Two hundred and eleven patients with node-positive stage II and III breast cancer were treated with eight cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy comprising cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin and oral ftorafur (CAFt), with and without tamoxifen. All patients had undergone radical surgery, and 148 patients were treated with post-operative radiotherapy in two randomized studies. The impact of haematological toxicity of CAFt on distant disease-free (DDFS) and overall survival (OS) was recorded. Dose intensity of all given cycles (DI), dose intensity of the two initial cycles (DI2) and total dose (TD) were calculated separately for all chemotherapy drugs and were correlated with DDFS and OS. Patients with a lower leucocyte nadir during the chemotherapy had significantly better DDFS and OS (P = 0.01 and 0.04 respectively). Dose intensity of the two first cycles also correlated significantly with DDFS (P = 0.05) in univariate but not in multivariate analysis, while the leucocyte nadir retained its prognostic value. These results indicate that the leucocyte nadir during the adjuvant chemotherapy is a biological marker of chemotherapy efficacy; this presents the possibility of establishing an optimal dose intensity for each patient. The initial dose intensity of adjuvant chemotherapy also seems to be important in assuring the optimal effect of adjuvant chemotherapy.