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8129

Targeted delivery of albumin bound paclitaxel in the treatment of advanced breast cancer

Review

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Authors: Francesco Di Costanzo, Silvia Gasperoni, Virginia Rotella, Federica Di Costanzo

Published Date July 2009 Volume 2009:2 Pages 179 - 188
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/OTT.S3863

Francesco Di Costanzo,1 Silvia Gasperoni,1 Virginia Rotella,1 Federica Di Costanzo2

1Struttura Complessa Oncologia Medica, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Careggi, Florence; 2Servizio di Oncologia: Ospedale S: Maria della Stella, Orvieto, Italy

Abstract: Taxanes are chemotherapeutic agents with a large spectrum of antitumor activity when used as monotherapy or in combination regimens. Paclitaxel and docetaxel have poor solubility and require a complex solvent system for their commercial formulation, Cremophor EL® (CrEL) and Tween 80® respectively. Both these biological surfactants have recently been implicated as contributing not only to the hypersensitivity reactions, but also to the degree of peripheral neurotoxicity and myelosuppression, and may antagonize the cytotoxicity. Nab-paclitaxel, or nanoparticle albumin-bound paclitaxel (ABI-007; Abraxane®), is a novel formulation of paclitaxel that does not employ the CrEL solvent system. Nab-paclitaxel demonstrates greater efficacy and a favorable safety profile compared with standard paclitaxel in patients with advanced disease (breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, ovarian cancer). Clinical studies in breast cancer have shown that nab-paclitaxel is significantly more effective than standard paclitaxel in terms of overall objective response rate (ORR) and time to progression. Nab-paclitaxel in combination with gemcitabine, capecitabine or bevacizumab has been shown to be very active in patients with advanced breast cancer. An economic analysis showed that nab-paclitaxel would be an economically reasonable alternative to docetaxel or standard paclitaxel in metastatic breast cancer. Favorable tumor ORR and manageable toxicities have been reported for nab-paclitaxel as monotherapy or in combination treatment in advanced breast cancer.

Keywords: breast cancer, nab-paclitaxel, chemotherapy