Value of adjuvant anthracyclines in intermediate or high-risk HER2-negative early breast cancer

Anthracycline/cyclophosphamide-taxane (AC-T) is the standard of care in the adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-negative early breast cancer (EBC), but recent studies suggest omisson of anthracyclines for reduced toxicity without compromising efficacy. Pooled analysis of two phase 3 studies compared AC-T versus six cycles of docetaxel/cyclophosphamide (TC6) for these patients. The analysis showed that AC-T compared with TC6 conferred no significant DFS or OS advantage, while patients in the TC6 group had significantly fewer grade 3 or 4 adverse events. Exploratory subgroup analysis showed that patients with lobular pN2/pN3 tumors seemed to benefit from anthracycline-containing chemotherapy.