WEDNESDAY, March 12 (HealthDay News) -- Advanced breast cancer patients treated with exemestane alone or combined with celecoxib achieve similar rates of clinical benefit, although the median benefit duration is twice as long for combination treatment, researchers report in the March 10 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Luc Yves Dirix, M.D., from Oncologisch Centrum Sint-Augustinus in Wilrijk, Belgium, and colleagues randomly assigned 111 postmenopausal women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer who had progressive disease after tamoxifen treatment to 25 mg of exemestane-alone daily or combined with 400 mg of celecoxib twice daily. Clinical benefit was defined as objective tumor response and stable disease for at least 24 weeks.
The researchers found that similar percentages of patients in both groups had clinical benefit (49 percent for exemestane alone, 47.1 percent for combination). Time to progression was also similar for both groups, and the addition of celecoxib did not affect the tolerability of exemestane alone. However, the median duration of clinical benefit was considerably longer in the combination group (96.6 versus 49.1 weeks), the authors report.
"Similar rates of clinical benefit were achieved in both groups," Dirix and colleagues conclude.
The study was supported by Pfizer and several authors disclose financial relationships with the company.
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