Postoperative adjuvant therapy with tamoxifen, tegafur plus uracil, or both in women with node-negative breast cancer: a pooled analysis of six randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE

This article reports the results of a pooled analysis of six randomized trials conducted to study the efficacy of uracil and tegafur (UFT) in the adjuvant treatment of node-negative breast cancer patients.

METHODS

Six randomized controlled trials on node-negative breast cancer patients were conducted from 1992 through 1995 in Japan that included the three, three-arm trials (control [no adjuvant], UFT, and tamoxifen [TAM] groups) and the three, four-arm trials (control, UFT, TAM, and UFT plus TAM groups). Pooled analysis was performed on the data obtained from these six trials (involving 2,934 patients).

RESULTS

Overall survival was compared between the UFT group (including both the UFT group and the TAM plus UFT group) and the non-UFT group (control group and TAM group). A significant difference (P = .04) was observed in 5-year survival rates between the UFT (95.9%) and the non-UFT (94.0%) groups. Overall survival was also compared between the TAM group (TAM group and TAM plus UFT group) and the non-TAM group (control group plus UFT group). The 5-year survival rate (95.2%) in the TAM group was not significantly different from that (93.9%) in the non-TAM group, but the subset analysis showed a significant (P = .01) improvement in the estrogen receptor-positive subset.

CONCLUSIONS

Adjuvant UFT improves the overall survival of node-negative breast cancer patients. Given that UFT has milder adverse effects, it is suggested that UFT can be a useful alternative to doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide, or cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil in the adjuvant treatment for node-negative breast cancer.