A retrospective analysis of adjuvant CAF, AC-T and TAC regimens in triple negative early stage breast cancer.

PURPOSE To compare the effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy regimens in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) for which no protocol has been determined to be treatment of choice. METHODS In this single-center retrospective trial, we analyzed the adjuvant regimens of 164 TNBC patients among 3253 breast cancer patient records. Adjuvant TAC (docetaxel, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide), CAF (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, 5fluorouracil), and AC-T (doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide followed by docetaxel) regimens were compared in terms of disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). RESULTS In terms of both DFS and OS TAC was significantly superior to AC-T in node positive TNBC. When node negative and positive patients were analyzed together, TAC was still significantly superior to AC-T in terms of DFS and OS. There was a trend favoring CAF over AC-T, however, it was only significant in terms of OS when all node negative and positive TNBC patients were incorporated together. CONCLUSION In the adjuvant setting, especially in node positive patients, TAC should be the treatment of choice in TNBC patients. CAF is probably better than AC-T in TNBC.