Dose-dense sequential adjuvant chemotherapy followed, as indicated, by trastuzumab for one year in patients with early breast cancer: first report at 5-year median follow-up of a Hellenic Cooperative Oncology Group randomized phase III trial

Table 3 Treatment compliance to trastuzumab

	Arm A: E-T-CMF N = 333 N (%)	Arm B: E-CMF-wD N = 331 N (%)	Arm C: E-CMF-wT N = 326 N (%)	Total study population N = 990 N (%)
Received trastuzumab
No	243 (73)	247 (75)	245 (75)	735 (74)
Yes	90 (27)	84 (25)	81 (25)	255 (26)
Completed 1 year uneventfully	69 (77)	58 (69)	62 (77)	189 (74)
Discontinued
Temporarily¹	13 (14)	16 (19)	12 (15)	41 (16)
Permanently²	8 (9)	10 (12)	7 (9)	25 (10)

¹Treatment delay (n = 5), asymptomatic reduction of ejection fraction (n = 1), infection (n = 3), voluntary withdrawal (n = 28), not defined (n = 4).
The temporary discontinuation of the trastuzumab treatment was short in duration, with a median discontinuation time of 3 weeks, with 39 of the 41 patients (95%) eventually receiving a full year of trastuzumab treatment.
²Chronic heart failure (n = 3), asymptomatic reduction of ejection fraction (n = 4), disease progression (n = 7), withdrawal of consent (n = 9), other (n = 2).
N number of patients.

ISSN: 1471-2407